Fissure
by Menamebephil
Summary: A devastating attack sends two lonely and despondent figures tumbling through the ether. Can they put aside their differences, find their way home, and perhaps find happiness at the same time? Probably not, but what can you do? BB/Jinx. Hells yeah.
1. After the End

**Fissure.**

**Alright. This is my contribution to the crack pairings community: a BB/Jinx. And this isn't going to be one of those pansy crackfics, where the two**** will indulge in a conversation with some light flirting before going their separate ways. Oh hell no, this will be a story that howls and beats its chest. Anyone who feels uncomfortable with that concept can just grin and bear it. Or read something else.**

**Please note that this story utterly disregards season five. Yes, I had to go to **_**those**_** kinds of lengths to make my ship viable. Such is the hard life of a crack warrior.**

**This story was initially going to be called "Methylbenzo****ylecgonine", but I changed it after realizing three things. 1- It had nothing to do with the story. 2- Only about five science nerds would get the joke. 3- I shouldn't call my stories words I cannot pronounce. As it is, I don't really like the title, but I guess I'm stuck with it.**

**--**

**Chapter One: After the End.**

The day after the world ended, Beast Boy woke up feeling thoroughly miserable.

It wasn't the fact that he was still sore after spending most of yesterday evening getting the shit kicked out of him, he'd got over that quite quickly. It wasn't even the fact that _she_ had been _extremely_ friendly with _him_ (again) while giving Beast Boy a scathing brush-off (again). At least, it wasn't that any more. It _had_ been that, at the lonely hour of about three in the morning, but now it was replaced with a realization that made him feel lower than dirt.

He had absolutely _no _place feeling like that. If Raven was finally opening up, like Beast Boy had wanted her to for _years_, for her own sake more than his, then that was a reason for celebration. If she was developing feelings for someone, then he should be wishing her all the luck in the world, and helping her any way he could. If she was opening up to Robin, rather than him, then he would be happy for her- for _both _of them, and hope like hell that Robin noticed, and realized just what he was being offered. Feeling jealous was beyond low.

Or was he asking too much of himself? Sure, he would _act_ happy for them, of that there was no doubt. But was it fair to him to have to actually _feel_ happy to? Would the effort involve break him? Melt his brain, burst his heart?

Well, he didn't really have a choice. Raven could tell whether or not he was really happy, no matter _how_ good an actor he was.

With a groan, Beast Boy smacked his head on his bedroom wall. Maybe he should just give himself concussion. Concussed people didn't have to deal with love woes (as laughable as his was- he was one third of a love triangle where the other two didn't know he existed). When you were concussed, everything was simple. And people had to be nice to people with concussion, too. When you were concussed, everyone focused on _you_. Concussed people were always the centre of attention; which was kinda weird, 'cause concussions really aren't that interesting to look at.

Maybe he would go for a walk. Yeah. A walk would solve everything.

Well, actually it wouldn't solve anything, but it would give him a little breathing space.

--

Cyborg was up at his usual time, whistling to himself while prodding at some miscellaneous lumps of meat in a pan. Normally, Beast Boy would have protested this nauseating outrage with much gusto, but not today. He simply couldn't muster the energy to care. Eschewing tofu, Beast Boy snagged a promising (read: not actually covered in fuzz) orange from the fruit bowl and flopped down.

"Mornin', B," Cyborg said jovially. "Rob gave us all the day off today, unless something big shows up."

Beast Boy looked sidelong at his metal friend. "Really? _Robin _is planning on taking time off? What's he doing?"

Cyborg grinned. "Weightlifting."

Beast Boy rolled his eyes, and hurled his peel into the bin. "Huh. Figures." He paused long enough to eat a few segments of orange. "I thought I would go for a walk or something after breakfast."

"Oh?" Cyborg looked at Beast Boy oddly, and Beast Boy inwardly cursed. Vic knew him too well, really. He kept up his disaffected facade, determined not to crack. "Well, have fun with that, I guess. When were you gonna go?"

"Now," replied Beast Boy, as he finished his orange and stood up. "See you in an hour or so."

--

Once he was in the city, and safe from prying robotic eyes, Beast Boy tried to think of a solution to his problem. The answer was every bit as evasive as he'd anticipated.

He needed to let go of his unrequited feelings. Otherwise, Raven would find out something was up pretty quickly, and would probably confront him about it. There was _no way_ he would survive a conversation like that. So he needed to lose this feeling _quickly_.

Hmm. Alcohol? No, Robin would kill him. Maybe a tinfoil hat would block his brainwaves. But that would be a _little_ conspicuous.

Beast Boy groaned quietly. He _needed_ to get a girlfriend. Some nice civilian girl to distract him from all this crap.

Suddenly, Beast Boy saw something that made him shelve all his personal troubles.

--

Cyborg sighed as he scrubbed the grease from his frying pan. It didn't take a genius to know that something was seriously off with Beast Boy. He hadn't seen him this low since Terra.

Unfortunately, Cyborg was distracted from his train of thought by an incoming message. He tapped on his arm, and Beast Boy's worried visage filled the screen.

"_Err, Cy? Got something of a situation downtown."_

Cyborg frowned. "What's goin' on?"

"_Looks like the Hive...err, five, six, seven- no, wait, that's another Billy Numerous- six are robbing a bank. Looks like they replaced that guy, too."_

Cyborg frowned. "What guy?"

"_You know, that guy, the one whose power was having that dorky shield. They've replaced him with some kind of Batman look-alike. And they've got Billy Numerous on side too."_

Cyborg drew his hand across his face in exasperation. "Alright, we'll get down there. Try to stay out of sight until we arrive."

"_Hey, look, it's that green feller! Get him!"- "Uh, it might be a little late for that, Cy."_

--

Beast Boy backed up, eyes darting, but the Hive had blocked all viable escape routes. This was going to hurt.

In what was possibly a subconscious attempt to distract himself from the beating to come, Beast Boy found himself looking past the leering faces of the juvenile criminals to scan the civilians in the background. Suddenly his eyes focused on someone that made his heart stop dead.

Mammoth pulled up short from his attack when it became clear that Beast Boy wasn't paying attention, which Mammoth found somewhat insulting.

"Hey! What're you looking at?" He followed Beast Boy's gaze, and frowned at the peculiarly dressed figure that held the diminutive hero's attention.

"...No..." Beast Boy shook his head and started stumbling backwards, away from the dark figure that had started to walk towards the assembled metahumans. "...No...not _you_..."


	2. The Quiz

**Chapter Two: The Quiz.**

Jinx half turned curiously towards the newcomer, while keeping one hand trained on the Titan. It was an odd figure, covered from head to toe in a tan leather trenchcoat, with brown gloves and boots. Any facial features were concealed by a huge gas mask and helmet. The entire ensemble was liberally sprinkled with red question marks.

"Oh, please no," Beast Boy continued, as he continued to back away, almost colliding with Jinx. "Please tell me that this is some new Hive member or something. Like, the Riddler's teenage sidekick you've teamed up with."

Jinx blinked. "Wait, you actually _want _this freak to be on our side?"

Beast Boy turned to look at her, and gave her a kind of insane grin. "Compared to the alternative? Most definitely."

Before Jinx could ask for clarification, the figure spoke.

"Beast Boy! I heard you were running with a new team, but I must admit this wasn't what I had in mind. Care to introduce me to your friends?" The figure, by the voice, was female, and spoke with a Japanese twang and distinct amusement.

"Hey! We ain't no friends of his!" Billy Numerous angrily protested.

"You aren't? Oh, what a shame." The figure sounded genuinely disappointed. "Well, then I shall have to apologize."

"Fer what?"

The figure shook her head. "You walked right into _that_, didn't you? Sorry, but you're in my way." With that, she raised her hand towards the red-clad criminal, and a ball of red light gathered in her palm-

"Energy projection!"

-and fizzled out and died, leaving Billy white-faced and shaken, but otherwise unharmed.

"Oh, poop," the villain said, a pout evident in her voice. "Well, I suppose I shall have to do this the old fashioned way." With this, she cracked her knuckles.

"Super strength!" Beast Boy shouted, earning him some odd looks.

"Damn. Right, how about-"

"Telekenisis!"

"Err-"

"Monster summoning!"

"...ah!"

"Mind control!"

"..."

"Trans- transmo- turning things into other things!"

Beast Boy and the unknown enemy stared each other down, each deep in concentration. From behind Beast Boy, Jinx cleared her throat.

"Mind explaining what's going on?"

Beast Boy looked at her from over his shoulder. "She's called The Quiz. Her power is everything you haven't mentioned yet. Flight!" he snapped, and The Quiz crashed back to earth with a thud.

"Oh. That's a really stupid power."

"Time travel!"

"Although, now I think about it, it does seem kinda handy."

"Altering the fabric of reality!"

The Quiz spluttered incoherently as she wracked her brains.

"Super speed!" Beast Boy turned back for a second. "Luckily, she's not too bright. Awesome gadgets!"

"'Awesome gadgets' isn't a power," Jinx protested, not unreasonably.

"Tell that to Batman. Weasel control!"

"Weasel control?"

"She actually did that one time. Elasticity!"

Jinx joined in, with less enthusiasm than Beast Boy had. "Invisibility."

"Good call. Dream manipulation!"

"Shapeshifting."

"Now why didn't I think of that one? Turning people into toilet bowls filled with flowers!"

"..._what_?"

"Hey, I speak from experience."

The Quiz, who had been motionless while this had been going on, spoke up.

"A pretty good list there." You didn't have to see her face to know she was smirking. "But you missed one."

With that, she snapped her fingers. There was a blinding flash of light, and when the glare cleared, Beast Boy and Jinx were gone.

--

Raven bundled into the T-Car after Starfire. Normally, both of them might have elected to fly, both everyone was too tired after two straight days of fighting.

As the vehicle motored down the underwater tunnel that led to the city, Raven spent a little while nurturing a bad mood. For all her life, she had never thought she would see this day, and now it had arrived, she had wanted to savor it. But then Beast Boy had to go run into trouble. Typical.

No, that wasn't fair. Beast Boy had just _found_ trouble this time; he hadn't actively caused it.

She would try to keep this in mind when she got to him.

--

To their credit, the Hive recovered from the disappearance of their leader fairly quickly, and instantly surrounded The Quiz. Gizmo, standing tall on his mechanical legs, stepped forwards.

"Alright, where'd you send her?" he asked, in his most intimidating voice.

The Quiz didn't give the impression that she was particularly intimidated. "I'm not sure. If she ever comes back, I'm sure you can ask her," she replied with a smirk in her voice. "I didn't _really_ mean to send her as well, just Beast Boy. She was just a _little_ too close to him. Oh well, that's life."

Enraged, Gizmo struck her with one of his metal legs with all the force they could muster. The Quiz simply took the spike to the stomach without even flinching, and the robotic appendage crumpled on contact with her.

Gizmo gnashed his teeth. "Invulnerability. Fast healing. Immunity to pain. Now," he said, this time extending a kind of beam weapon from his backpack, "are you going to start giving me some answers?"

The impromptu interrogation was interrupted by the screeching arrival of the Titans.

"Aw, crud. We gotta get out of here."

See-More spoke up. "No, wait! Since this crazy lady zapped Beast Boy too, they'll want to get him back, right? So, they're kinda on _our _side, in a way. For now."

Gizmo uneasily eyed the costumed vigilantes as they piled out of their cat. "Well...okay. But _you're _explaining what's going on to them."

See-More gulped and walked towards the Titans, his palms parallel with his ears. "Err...hi." Seeing Robin give him a _very _odd look, he decided to explain as quickly as possible. "Now, before I say anything, I want you to know that _none_ of this is our fault, okay?"

Robin cocked an eyebrow. "I think I'll be the judge of that."

That didn't sound good. Talk quickly. "Well, we just happened across your friend when this crazy lady pops out of nowhere and starts attacking him...and..."

"_And,"_ Robin prompted.

"And...kinda...madehimdissapearalongwithJinxinaapuffofsmokedon'tkillmerememberwhatIsaidaboutitnotbeingourfault."

Robin blinked. Then blinked again. Then realization dawned.

"_What?!"_

"It was her!" wailed See-More, and pointed at The Quiz. Robin stormed over to the captive villainess, with the rest of the Titans in tow.

"Is this true?" Robin barked.

"Yes," The Quiz replied genially.

"Bring him back. _Now,_" Robin ground out through his teeth.

"Ooh, I'm so sorry," she said, although her tone slandered her words, "I'm afraid I can't do that. At least, not _now_."

Robin shared confused looks with the rest of his team. "And why not now? Stage fright?"

"Oh, nothing like that, it's just I can't do anything once it's been mentioned. Power limitation." She continued, brightly. "But no one mentioned _this_!"

On _this_, The Quiz vanished in a puff of laughter and purple smoke, leaving nine angry and confused teenagers in her wake.

**--**

**Believe it or not, I did not invent The Quiz. She's an old Doom Patrol villain. And she did once turn people into toilet bowls filled with flowers.**


	3. Having a Difficult Day

**Chapter Three: Having a Difficult Day.**

The Quiz snapped her fingers, and Jinx was suddenly privy to a sensation that few had ever felt. Specifically, it was the feeling of being stretched until she was well over ten feet tall, then released so quickly that she snapped down with enough force for her chin to end up down by her knees. The sensation was known by enthusiasts, which consisted of Plastic Man and no one else, as "thlabber".

Frankly, it was something she could have lived without experiencing. Ever. Bones were _not_ supposed to do that.

However, suddenly she had other things on her mind. Every sense was assaulted to the point of overload, and she screwed her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her ears and screeched as loudly as she could in an attempt to drive it out.

It did no good. Her skin was alternately blistering from heat and turning numb from cold, every muscle in her body went into sudden and excruciating cramp, her tongue tasted copper and salt and sugar and beef steak and coconut sorbet and everything in between, and her ears were assaulted by wails and hoots and strange echoes, some of which she heard before the thing that they echoed. She thought.

She didn't dare open her eyes.

Then things got strange. After the cacophony reached a huge, painful crescendo, there was a sudden feeling of numbness. There was no input of any kind, from any sense.

Later, she would remember wondering if that was what dying was like.

She would try to forget how comfortable with the idea she had been.

Suddenly, inexplicably, she tasted crying. There was no other way to describe it. She could feel the fact that someone was weeping through her _tongue._ In a panic, she cried out, and suddenly her tongue went into overload, as the sound echoed around her mouth and pinged off her teeth. It was like vomiting.

Her hearing was next, the crackling sounds of pure _heat_ filling her ears. In a fit of daring, she cracked one eyelid.

She couldn't see anything. It wasn't black, it simply wasn't _anything_. There was no other way to describe it. Her skin danced, and she knew it was telling her that she wasn't alone, that Beast Boy was nearby. The closest she would ever come to explaining that was that it was akin to the hairs on the back of your neck sticking up, which was the australopithecus in your hindbrain saying that there was a tiger behind you, but much, _much_ more specific. Her skin tasted his sweat, his clothes, his blood-

Then he started screaming. She didn't hear it, but _saw_ it, jagged green lightning, bolts of agony that flashed around her and illuminated the nothing, throwing it into sharp relief. She knew, _knew_ that he was in absolute agony, she could instinctively read that much in the jagged light, and would have been glad that she couldn't hear him, except that seeing his screaming was just as bad.

It was no exaggeration to say that those moments, however long they lasted-a few seconds, a few years, she couldn't tell; the idea of something as artificial and human as a minute existing in this void was impossible; the nothing would laugh and swallow it whole- were some of the worst of her life.

Fortunately, they didn't last. Beast Boy gave one last, desperate, hacking cry (it looked like a cross between the most beautiful fountain she had ever seen and a thunderstorm) of the kind that would have had her wincing in dispassionate sympathy had she not been otherwise occupied, and there was another flash of light.

Jinx tumbled to the soft earth, a second thud indicating that her impromptu traveling companion had arrived with her. Her vision swam as she lifted her head, but she got an impression of green leafiness.

Then she threw up. Lots and lots.

--

After she was done redecorating the floor, she felt better, at least well enough to get a good look around her. What she saw made her feel distinctly uncomfortable.

A jungle. She was in a freaking _jungle_.

Light filtered through the canopy overhead, soft earth was at her feet, and all around her was the symphony of life; the cawing of birds, the hooting of primates, and the chatter of insects. The trickle of the stream next to her offset and underpinned the sounds of the fauna, creating an aura of serene, natural beauty. It was a scene to make even the most committed yuppie to break down in tears of bitter ecstasy and hurl the keys to his SUV into the undergrowth. Simply put, it was pure Nirvana.

Oh fuck.

She jumped up and backwards in one smooth movement, assuming a classic defensive posture, should the landscape prove hostile. The only thing that this accomplished was to send her staggering backwards, where she tripped over something.

That 'something' turned out to be Beast Boy. It looked like he was dead.

Hmm. Best to check that. Jinx put two fingers to his neck, and felt a pulse, weak and ragged though it was.

Right. Time to get out of here.

She looked around, hoping to find a pathway of some description. No dice. They appeared to have landed next to a tiny stream that trickled its way through the undergrowth, but that was it. Upstream? Jungle. Downstream? Jungle. Behind her? Jungle. In front of her?

The Lonsdale Gentlemen's Country Club.

If, of course, by 'the Lonsdale Gentlemen's Country Club' one meant, in fact, a jungle.

She glanced behind her. It didn't look like Beast Boy was going anywhere soon. Now was the best time to make a break for it.

Where to?

As much as she hated to admit it, she was completely helpless. She hadn't been away from a city since she was seven.

Well, Beast Boy was part monkey, or something, wasn't he? He would have at least _some_ idea of what he was doing, wouldn't he? At the very least he could chitter to his animal friends and locate some semblance of civilization.

So wouldn't it be a good idea to get him to get her out of this vision of hell? After all, wouldn't his Hero Sense compel him to help the Damsel in Distress, no matter her affiliations?

...Actually, scratch that. She wouldn't be caught dead playing the Distressed Damsel. Better to simply threaten to hex his ass off if he didn't help.

Jinx wasn't actually sure she could pull that threat off, if it really came down to it. Frankly, Beast Boy could be _very_ dangerous if he wanted to be (it all really depended on whether or not he was paying attention) and she was hardly in tip-top condition.

Then again, she thought as she prodded the comatose hero with her toe, he definitely had it worse than her in _that _department.

Her plan decided, she sat down to wait next to the green boy, very thoughtfully rolling him off the large spiky rock he seemed to have landed on.

And to think they said she wasn't a people person.


	4. A Bad Situation

**Chapter Four: A Bad Situation.**

The world swam into focus, and it was exceptionally green. For Beast Boy, this was not unprecedented. After all, his room had green walls (something that had always irked Beast Boy, and had frankly offended him- after all, no one assumed that Cyborg's favorite colour was brown) but this was a different kind of green. It was more like filtered green light, coming from overhead.

So, he was in a forest of some description. That much he could handle. He kept his eyes closed, though. The last time he had opened them, he had lived to regret it. The sight- or half sight, really- of that great, looming _thing_, reaching-

No. He couldn't think about that. Not yet.

He was fairly sure he was out of the void- that had been painted in black, purple and blood red- but he didn't want to tempt fate. So he kept his eyes shut.

"I know you're awake, you know."

So much for that, then. One eye flicked open, roving in its socket until it came to rest upon an alabaster figure sitting a little way away from him.

His thick eyebrows knitted together. "Jinx?"

"Got it in one, greenie."

He sat up, and took in the scene.

"...Where are we?"

Jinx deflated. "I kinda hoped you could tell me that."

"Oh. Gimmie a minute." He looked around the small glade the two had landed in, searching for anything that could give him an indication of their location. Behind him, Jinx shuffled impatiently. Irritated, he turned back to her.

"Will you hold still? You're startling the wildlife."

"And that's important _how_?"

Beast Boy stared at her as if she was an idiot. It wasn't a look he pulled off well. "'Cause that's how I'm gonna...find...out..." he trailed off as he stretched out an arm towards her, a strange look on his face.

Jinx, in spite of herself, started backing up.

"What the-" her angry questioning was cut off as Beast Boy walked straight past her and cupped his hands around something on a branch behind her.

"A­_ha_." Beast Boy sounded pleased with himself, but Jinx couldn't see what he was holding.

"What? What is it?"

In response, Beast Boy threw his arms upwards, releasing a large black and yellow butterfly which flitted upwards into the canopy.

"That was a citrus swallowtail. They're native to Tanzania, but can also be found in..." he turned to look at her. "Wait here."

Before Jinx could protest, a green monkey scuttled upwards and was lost in the trees.

--

After about ten minutes, Beast Boy dropped out of the foliage next to Jinx, who looked distinctly irritated.

"Well?"

Beast Boy shook his head disbelievingly. "I think we're in Upper Lamumba."

Jinx cocked an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

Beast Boy continued, apparently not listening. "I mean, I could see what _looked_ like the Zambezi, and the falls were too large to be the Chavumas and _way _too small to be the Victorias, but that can't be right, 'cause I can't see the village _anywhere_, and there's some kind of building over the river where I reckon the village should be that I have _never _seen before-"

"Beast Boy," Jinx interrupted sternly, "where are we?"

"Upper Lamumba, Africa," he replied.

"Okay. Right. So we're in Africa. I can deal with that. I am far too composed to freak out over the minor fact that we somehow wound up on another _continent_. So," she continued, with a kind of manic calm "do you know where we can go to get the hell _out_ of Africa?"

Beast Boy sensed that now was _not_ a good time to tell her that the nearest port was over one thousand, five hundred miles away, over a national border, and facing the wrong ocean; and neither of them would _ever_ manage to get on an aeroplane, since they had no money or passports.

"Err, I guess the first thing we gotta do is find a phone or something. Like I said, there seems to be a kind of complex over the river; so all we gotta do is get there and make a few phone calls or something." _But I don't remember any kind of facility in the whole _country_, let alone anywhere near the village_.

"Good." Jinx nodded primly to herself. It was nice to have a plan; it made her think that her world was somehow grounded again. "And how long will it take us to get there?"

Beast Boy did some rough calculation. "I'd say...about four days, give or take."

To say that Jinx was unhappy with this news would be like claiming that Michael Jackson was a little on the odd side- technically true, but woefully under descriptive of the entire picture.

Beast Boy backed up, his hands waving placatingly in front of him, his only defense in the face of Jinx's ire.

"Now, Jinx, calm down."

"Calm down? _Calm down?_ What do you mean, 'calm down'? I'm in the middle of _nowhere_, it's going to be _days_ before I can even get to a _phone_, the only people we can actually _call _that could come and get us are your stupid little friends, so even when I get out of here I'm gonna go straight to jail, and this is _all your fault_!" Jinx seemed almost frantic as she turned on him.

Beast Boy bristled in the face of the accusation. "_My_ fault? How is this _my_ fault?"

"Well, if that crazy bitch hadn't been after _you_, then none of this would have happened!"

"That doesn't make it _my_ fault, does it?"

Jinx looked about to shout some more, but abruptly got a grip on herself.

"No. I guess it doesn't." Jinx expertly quashed the feeling that she should apologize for her outburst.

Beast Boy shrugged. "Heh, don't worry about it. I'd be kinda freaked if I was in your shoes too."

That sounded strange, and it took Jinx a moment to figure out why.

"And why exactly is your situation different to mine?"

Beast Boy grinned. "I'm what you might call a local. I was born here."

Jinx frowned. "So, doesn't that make us being teleported _here_ an incredibly unlikely event? I mean, what are the odds of _that_?"

Beast Boy shrugged. "Low, I'd think. But let's make the most of it." He looked upwards, trying to find the sun. "I reckon we've got a few more hours of daylight left. Let's get moving."

"Hold up. I want some answers here. Who _was_ that crazy woman? How come she knew you?"

Beast Boy looked uncomfortable. "We had best make the most of the daylight. I'll explain more when we make camp tonight, okay?"

Jinx frowned, uncomfortable with the idea of being forced to follow Beast Boy's lead, but acquiesced. After all, this was his area of expertise.

As the pair walked off downstream, neither saw the bone white eyes that observed them from the canopy.


	5. Making the Best of It

**Chapter Five: Making the Best of It.**

"We are stopping _here_. I can't walk any further," Jinx melodramatically declared, and flopped down onto the ground, awaiting Beast Boy's reaction.

Although she in truth _was_ tired, and it was getting late, she also desperately wanted to feel like she was in control of at least _some_ of this situation again, and this seemed an easy way to test Beast Boy's authority.

To her surprise, he nodded, and spoke.

"Okay, try to find some dry wood; I'll be back in a moment."

With that, a green baboon leapt upwards, and Jinx grumpily looked around for something to fuel a fire with.

After a few minutes, the baboon returned with a bunch of what looked like tangerines, which he proffered. Noticing her hunger for the first time, Jinx snatched them and eagerly and set upon them.

After about three, it occurred to her that Beast Boy might be hungry too. When she looked up at him in order to ask just that, she was surprised to find the baboon happily gnawing on her discarded peels and a handful of leaves.

"Err...are you sure you wanna be eating those?"

The baboon swallowed, and turned back into Beast Boy.

"Yeah, it's no problem. Olive Baboons can eat _anything_. Their digestive system is crazy awesome. 'Sides, I don't wanna be eating those things anyway."

Jinx abruptly looked down at the diminished pile of fruit he had gesticulated to with a sudden pang of worry. Forcing herself to remain calm, she asked "and _why_ don't you want to eat them?"

Beast Boy's eyes widened as he realized he'd panicked Jinx. "There's nothing wrong with them, it's just that, well, there's a local belief that those things are, well..."

Jinx glared at him. "_Well_?"

Beast Boy cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, they're supposed to be an intense aphrodisiac for guys. It's never been tested, but I figured _now_ wouldn't be the best time to experiment."

Jinx blinked. Then she did the only sensible thing, under the circumstances. She laughed.

Beast Boy huffed and crossed his arms. "It's a perfectly reasonable concern!"

"Oh, come on, greenie, let's see about that fire," Jinx said, still grinning, and set her fruit down.

Beast Boy stood and walked over to the pile of wood and kindling Jinx had gathered. Muttering to himself, he began to rearrange it.

"Ya see, you gotta set out a fire in a certain way. It's no good to just pile it up in a heap," he said to Jinx, who was hovering over his shoulder, "you gotta set it up. You put your kindling in the middle like _this_, then you set up your smaller sticks in a kind of tepee shape around it like _this_...don't fall over don't fall over please don't fall over... _there_. Now you get some stones and put 'em in a ring around the pile like _this_. That's so you can keep the fire where you want it. Now you get the rest of your fuel and stack it to one side so's you can dump it on later."

Jinx, in spite of herself, was interested. "Now what? You gonna do that thing where you rub two sticks together? Or have you got some flint on you?"

Beast Boy shook his head, and felt around in a compartment in his utility belt. "Nope. I got this instead."

With a flourish, he produced a cigarette lighter, causing Jinx to suppress another laugh.

As Beast Boy lit the fire, Jinx prodded his back.

"So, greenie, you were gonna tell me about that crazy woman."

The fire sparked into life, and Beast Boy turned around.

"Oh yeah." He sat on a log before continuing. "Well, as I told you before, she's called the Quiz. Back in the old days, when I ran with another team, she was part of the organisation we fought. When they started to fall apart, she split on them, which was kinda lucky for us."

Jinx took the information in, and spotted several gaps in the story.

"Who were these guys you were part of? Who were you fighting?"

Beast Boy was quiet for a little while.

"I was on the Doom Patrol. We were fighting the Brotherhood of Evil."

Jinx scoffed. "'Brotherhood of Evil'? What a lame name. So," she continued, "why'd you quit?"

Beast Boy stared into the fire. "They all died."

"Oh." For a moment, Jinx thought she should say something, but decided against it. After all, cheering people up was _not_ something she was good at.

And besides, what did _she_ care if this hero was drowning in angst? The only reason she hadn't split on him was because she was fairly sure he was the only thing keeping her alive at the moment.

"Hey, Jinx, you got a coin?"

Jinx's brow furrowed. "Nooo...why?"

"I thought we could flip to see who gets first watch. We can't both sleep at the same time; it would be dangerous."

Jinx nodded. "Yeah. So, how're we gonna decide?"

Beast Boy turned to Jinx, grinning, and extended his fist.

"Rock paper scissors?" he suggested.

--

The creature sat in the undergrowth, out of sight of the fire. Its gaze rested on the pale girl sitting on a log. Its ears twitched as she began making strange sounds.

"_Stupid idea, anyway. 'Rock, paper, scissors'? What kind of lame way of making a decision is _that_?"_

The creature was confused. What was the point in making sounds when she was alone? Did she attempt to call her pack to her?

The girl's prescence worried the creature. In this jungle, he was King. Nothing moved here without his knowledge, and nothing lived without his consent. He should kill this outsider now.

But where had she come from? The Stone Mountain?

The creature shuddered at the thought of the Mountain. He had only become aware of it a few years ago, and had ventured there twice. It had cost him both times. It appeared that the Mountain was far larger on the inside than the outside, and full of strange creatures that screamed and fought harder than anything in his Jungle. The first time he had gone there, he had been exploring the confines of his territory. The second time, he had been _dragged_ there, his feet refusing to obey him, and he had been thrown into a world of fire and pain.

If she was from the Mountain, he would not impede her until he was sure of her intentions. There were easier prey, and she had not come to challenge him; not yet.

He sat and watched her all night. As the moon reached its apex, she lay down to sleep, and the creature's vigilance doubled. It would not do to leave her unprotected.

**--**

**African Cherry Oranges are the featured fruit in this chapter. Besat Boy is confused, by the way. It's an infusion made from the root of this plant that alledgedly acts as an aphrodisiac. I just like having him eat leaves.**


	6. Down on the Riverside

**Chapter Six: Down on the Riverside.**

The boat chugged downriver, the wailing strains of a harmonica echoing tinnily from a tape player, much to the chagrin of the young boy in the stern, who plugged his ears to block out the caterwauling, which earned a short laugh from his father. He got up to walk towards his mother, who was sitting at the helm, when the boat lurched violently.

"What was that?"

"I don't know," his father answered his mother, his voice terse. "I think we hit something. I'll try to bring us over to the bank." He wrestled with the tiller, but the river was stronger than him.

"Mama? What's happening?" The boy was worried. Although he hadn't gone on many boat rides, he was sure it wasn't supposed to be going so fast.

Marie shared a panicked glance with her husband, who nodded curtly after a moment. The significance was lost on the boy, who looked pleadingly to his parents for enlightenment.

"Gar? Mpenzi, we need you to fly. Go back to the village. Can you do that?"

The boy nodded. He could do that, although he wasn't sure why.

Marie wasted precious seconds in pulling her son into a brief hug, while Mark looked on, as grim a face on him as the boy had ever seen.

"Goodbye, Garfield. Nakupenda sana."

With the words of his father ringing in his ears, the boy jumped onto the side of the boat, and a second later, a green bird stood in his place, before taking off into the air.

After a few moments of flight, the bird looked back, trying to find the boat.

There was no sign of it anywhere.

Frantic, the bird skimmed the river, until it found a sign. There, wedged onto a large rock in the river, were the smashed remains of a hull.

His cry strangled by the inhuman throat, the bird landed on the rocks and began frantically searching the wreckage.

It was futile, and some small part of him knew it. He'd been told the stories, of the Zambi sharks that patrolled the river, but he didn't want to believe that.

It wasn't until half an hour of searching less than ten square feet of ground had passed that he finally allowed himself to succumb to reality.

"Beast Boy?"

No, no more crying. You're a soldier now.

"Beast Boy, seriously, you've been staring for like ten minutes."

Beast Boy shook his head. "Wha?"

Jinx gave him an odd look. "You're seriously spacey all of a sudden. I was asking how we're supposed to get over this river here" she gestured expansively "and instead of actually _answering_ you just stand there with a dumb look on your face."

Beast Boy scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, sorry about that."

Jinx cleared her throat. "_Anyway_..."

Beast Boy kept staring out at the water. "...Anyway _what_?"

Jinx smacked him on the back of the head.

"Ow! ...Thanks. I think I needed that." He looked around. "Yeah. So, swimming's out of the picture-"

"Why? Piranhas?"

Beast Boy shook his head. "Bull sharks. They call 'em "Zambi" in Africa, after this river. They're in the top three most vicious sharks in the world. 'Sides, the current's a _lot_ stronger than it looks, and there are rapids a few miles down river. Big, spiky rocks."

If Jinx noticed how his breath hitched up strangely as he finished his explanation, she didn't comment on it.

"So, how _are _we gonna get across? 'Cause flying is not among my many talents."

Beast Boy looked up at the jungle. He and Jinx were standing on a fairly large bank on the riverside, and there was _just_ enough room. He just needed some momentum, that was all.

"Okay, stand here," he said, and gestured to the waterside. Jinx did as he asked. Without explaining, he leapt upwards as a hawk, and soared into the sun.

Once he'd got what he judged (through some very hasty and _very _rough mathematics) to be enough height, he pulled into a long dive, twisting his shape as he did so.

Shifting in mid flight was always dangerous- he had to worry about trajectories and varying mass and wind resistance- but over the years he'd got it down to an art, and it was a seamless procedure to melt into a much larger being, one more suited for the task at hand.

The Quetzalcoatlus. Thirty-five feet of wing. One of the largest creatures ever to take to the skies. A triumph of aeronautical evolution.

Jinx, of course, didn't see it like that. What _she_ saw was a huge scaly monster descending from the skies to pounce on her. At times like that, the australopithecus took over.

So she ducked. She dived into the sand and rolled, her panicked mind overtaking sense. Unfortunately- or rather, fortunately- she'd made her move too soon, and Beast Boy was able to alter his path to snatch her by the shoulders in his huge claws.

After a few seconds of impotent struggling, Jinx's faculties returned to her once more. Unfortunately, the main thing that had cut through the primitive functions clouding her brain had been the fact that she was bleeding. As Beast Boy set her down on the opposite bank, and shifted back, she wasted no time in cuffing him around the head, hard.

"Ow! ...What was that one for?"

"A little _warning_ would have been nice, thank you! And you cut me," Jinx groused, feeling her left upper arm.

Beast Boy's face fell from impish amusement to concern in a beat, and he wasted no time in examining the wound.

'Wound' turned out to be a little too melodramatic a term. The scratch was long, but not deep, and it was dealt with in short order.

"Sorry about that," he'd offered, while he tried to examine it.

She'd replied with a grumble about not letting it happen again, and batted him away.

--

Jinx stared into the fire. She'd drawn the first watch again.

Speaking of that, she checked her watch. Still an hour and a half before sleep.

A sudden snap in the bushes made her jump. Was something out there?

Wait. She was in the middle of the _jungle_. Of _course_ there was something out there.

The question was, was it going to attack her?

After fifteen minutes, she concluded that the answer was 'no'.

"...no..."

Jinx sighed. He'd been like that for ten minutes. Every so often he'd thrash around a bit, or mumble. He was obviously having a nightmare of some kind.

Jinx wasn't stupid. However much he tried to hide it, it was fairly obvious that this place didn't hold the happiest of memories for him. The thing earlier today, with the staring out across the water, the way he'd positively _ran_ from the water's edge as soon as he could, and now the nightmare.

Why did she care?

Beast Boy was flailing around in his sleep now, his features contorted in an ugly way. With a long suffering sigh, Jinx moved over and poked him in the forehead. When that didn't rouse him, she took him by the shoulders and shook him hard.

"Masa!"

The effect was instantaneous; Beast Boy jerked into consciousness and yelled into Jinx's face before he knew what was going on. He took in the scene, and his breathing rate returned to normal.

"...sorry."

"Whatever. It's your turn for watch," she lied.

As Beast Boy took up his station, Jinx laid down to sleep, her brain buzzing with a strange feeling of security that she couldn't explain.

**--**

**Thanks to The Kamusi Project for Swahili translations.**


	7. Unicorns are Stupid

**Chapter Seven: Unicorns are Stupid.**

"So, Beast Boy," Jinx said, as the pair trekked through the undergrowth, "I was wondering; you can turn into animals, right?"

"Uh huh," he said, distractedly, as he wrestled with thick vines. "Why?"

"I was wondering, doesn't that make you a shape shifter?"

Beast Boy stopped, frozen in the tangle, and turned to look at Jinx. "Err..._yes_, since I, you know, _shift_ my _shape_. Jeez, I didn't think you were _that_ dense."

Jinx's response was to blast the vines holding him up with pink energy, and she grinned when he landed on his rear.

"What I _meant_ was, why do you stick to animals? I mean, you could turn into _anything_, so why do you always do the same old things?"

Beast Boy looked at her like she was asking him what he thought of the idea of music for the deaf.

Jinx sighed, and her hands waved, molding her thoughts until she felt they could fit into his head. "I mean, why don't you, for example, turn into mythical animals?"

Comprehension dawned. "_Oh, _Iget you."

Jinx blinked. "So, why don't you?"

"'Cause they're stupid."

Jinx gasped in horror, and pink eyes flared.

"You take that back _right now_. _Unicorns are not stupid!_"

--

A grey hand knocked on the evidence room door.

"Robin. I know you're in there."

No response, although she couldn't say she was surprised. Or deterred.

With a casual wave of her hand, the door slid open, the locks undoing themselves on her command. What she saw was exactly what she had expected, and that fact alone depressed her.

Robin was sitting at a computer, illuminated only by the light of the monitor. Around him was a plethora of newspaper clippings, with several areas marked in red ink. Even in the dim light the computer screen afforded, Raven could see he was disheveled and unkempt.

"What?" he asked, his attention not leaving the screen.

"We were wondering when we might next be afforded the pleasure of seeing our illustrious leader," Raven deadpanned.

"Later. I'm on to something."

Raven rolled her eyes. "It's been _three days_. I doubt you can actually be 'on to something' when you're two steps away from collapsing through malnutrition." When he turned back to the computer (of course) she continued. "Look, we appreciate that you're worried about him, we all are, and yes that includes me, and if you ever mention that to anyone I _will_ hurt you, but you don't need to lock yourself here in this mausoleum to prove it. Despite what you might think, we _can_ help you. Cyborg and I are looking over everything we can find, and Starfire's going into full Warrior Queen Mode, except she can't decide whether or not to scour the globe for this woman or kick your behind out of this room first. We can _help you_, if you'll just try to _conduct _our search, rather than running your own parallel investigation."

That was the longest speech she had made in a very long time, and Raven hoped he'd listened to at least _some_ of it. As she prepared to leave, Robin, against all of Raven's expectations, gave a response.

"The Quiz is a former member of the now defunct Brotherhood of Evil. She disappeared as the Doom Patrol began closing down the operation, and was assumed killed. However, she resurfaced a few years later, and was implicated in the death of one Dr. Niles Clauder. She was never caught, of course. After that... we lose her for a year and a half, and she next shows up in Berlin. Form there, she has appeared in various cities, mostly but not exclusively in Europe. Her costume has changed over the years, but it has always included a gas mask of some description, and has always been completely feature- obscuring."

He pulled over a black ring binder. "This is a document detailing her debut in Gotham City, which, until I can find more information, I will assume is her first appearance in the States. She didn't fare too well. It seems the Riddler took exception to her costume and name, claimed that she was stealing his shtick."

Raven blinked. "What happened?"

"He shot her."

"Oh. And that _worked_?"

"He figured her out quickly, and he had the sharper mind. Cut out her powers and shot her in the shoulder. She never came back to Gotham."

Raven frowned. That last tidbit had been delivered as if it had been routine, but his emotions told a different story.

Of course. "You went to _Batman_ for information?"

Robin's face betrayed nothing. "I was desperate."

Raven shook her head. "This potted biography is all very interesting, but it doesn't tell us how to _find_ her. Face it, you're stuck."

Robin groaned, and his head slammed into the keyboard. "I know. I was hoping she'd have some pattern to follow, but it just looks like she moves around on a whim. Who knows, maybe she was in the state and just decided to visit Beast Boy. Or maybe she was on the other side of the _world_ and decided to visit Beast Boy. Maybe she's been hunting him for years and just found him."

Raven waved her hands in front of her. "Whoa, whoa, slow down. Why would she be after _Beast Boy_ of all people?"

Robin raised an eyebrow, which warped his mask comically.

"You didn't know?"

Raven cleared her throat. "I wasn't trained by the greatest deductive mind in the world."

"You never stopped to wonder why Beast Boy wore black and _purple_?"

"Well, there's no accounting for taste-"

"He's the only surviving member of the Doom Patrol."

Raven paused. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

Robin sighed. "The Brotherhood of Evil was opposed by a squad of elite metahuman commandos called the Doom Patrol. They were so called because of their powers, which were, for the most part, physically or mentally disfiguring. This, of course, made many "normal" people uneasy around them at the best of times. Their reputation didn't help matters much."

Raven knew an angled sentence when she saw one. "Oh?"

Robin nodded. "Their methods of fighting the Brotherhood were controversial, at times illegal. From what I can piece together, the Doom Patrol saw themselves as fighting a war."

Raven frowned. "So, you think that this could be part of some years-old vendetta?"

Robin shrugged. "Maybe. Or it could just be coincidental." With a sigh, he moved towards the door, but paused at a thought. "Oh, could you keep what we discussed confidential?"

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Sure, although I don't see why Beast Boy never told us about all this. At the very least he must have some stories."

Robin answered without looking at her.

"I did say he was the only survivor."

--

Beast Boy backpedaled wildly, trying to explain himself.

"Look, I never said-" something close to understanding formed. "Wait a minute, I never _mentioned _Unicorns. Where did _that_ come from?"

Now Jinx was on the back foot, although she'd never admit it.

"Just answer the question," she said, although it came out less 'commanding' and more 'covering embarrassment'.

Beast Boy shrugged. "Okay, I guess.

"I'll start with what you'd think is a simple example; a centaur. Easy, right? I just stick a human and a horse together, right? Wrong. So very, very wrong.

"First off, you have the problem of the actual human spine. You can't just have the horse's spine curling upwards like that, so you have to replace the horse neck with a human spine. You have to realign the girdle around the shoulders, otherwise the human torso's gonna be leaning forwards the whole time.

"That was the easy bit. Now I gotta worry about the actual mechanics. Internal organs are, if you'll excuse the language, an absolute bitch. Take the lungs. You can't have two sets of lungs- you'd never manage to work out a trachea that got past all the human guts to get to the horse. So you gotta go with the human lungs instead.

"There's a problem with that- human lungs are _way_ too small for something the size of a horse, so the only sensible way of dealing with that is to make the _entire_ human torso lungs."

"Sensible," echoed Jinx, in something of a daze.

"Yeah. So you got big enough lungs for your centaur, now I gotta worry about air supply. I mean, have you ever _seen_ a horse's nostrils? They're _huge_! So I'd have to restructure the face and trachea completely. And there are more problems, all for just a centaur, which is a bit like a horse and a bit like a man, only a little less useful than both."

Jinx nodded. That made sense, as far as it went.

"But what about, you know, the heavy hitters? Like minotaurs or dragons?"

Beast Boy scowled at the word 'dragon', but elaborated.

"A minotaur would be easy, but I already got Big Strong Biped in my repertoire. A dragon, that I could do. Mainly because I saw one."

Jinx started. "Really? How did _that_ happen?"

Beast Boy chose his words carefully. "There was an old book... and it got loose. I saw the thing, couldn't help making a note of its physiology. I tried it later, when I was on my own, and it _sucked_.

"The thing we saw was supported mostly by magic. When I turned into a creature with the exact same physical structure, it couldn't even get off the ground.

"The beast was about the size of a T-Rex, with a wingspan of about forty, forty five feet. This would have been plenty, except the thing weighed at least six and a half tonnes, and that's _with _hollow bones. It couldn't fly, and although I figured out a way for it to breathe fire, using a gland that secreted a chemical that ignited when combined with oxygen, there was a fifty-fifty chance I'd blow my head up while doing it. So dragons are stupid."

Jinx shrugged. "Fair enough, I suppose." _And you've forgotten about the Unicorns; good._

Beast Boy nodded. "Now let's go; the more time we waste here, the longer it's gonna be until we eat real food again."

**--**

**Well, that was a big lump of nothing. What did you expect, entertainment?**

**Although, this has to be one of my favorite titles ever. Try saying it out loud, in a clear, purposeful voice.**


	8. Green Fever

**Chapter Eight: Green Fever.**

Jinx stared at the creature before her, confused beyond belief.

There, sitting not ten feet away from her, was a small green monkey.

She turned her head. There, lying next to her, was Beast Boy. Sound asleep.

She looked back. Monkey. Beast Boy. Monkey. Beast Boy. Mon-

Hey, where'd it go?

Ah. It had scampered a little way away from her.

Every synapse in her head was screaming at her to leave the damn monkey alone. Running off into the jungle in the middle of the night, leaving her only companion sound asleep, was suicidally stupid. Nonetheless, she folllowed, for reasons she wasn't sure of herself. After all, she felt confident that she could catch the monkey before she got out of sight of the fire.

Or perhaps she had overestimated herself. It was galling, but she was being outwitted by a _monkey._

Every time the monkey got _almost_ within reaching distance, it would scamper away, leaving Jinx frustrated beyond belief. After ten minutes, she was angry enough not to notice that she had left the glow of the fire far behind.

After ten minutes, she wondered what monkey tasted like.

After an eternity, the monkey stopped, in a small clearing, and sat, facing her. With a grin that, had she known it, looked slightly demented, she stepped towards it.

It cocked its head in a manner that, had she been anyone else, she would have described as adorable.

She reached out her hand, and the monkey hopped towards her, and stuck out its paw.

She bent her knees so she was closer to the verdant primate.

Suddenly, the creature's eyes flashed white and it bared its teeth. With a screech, it leapt forwards, fangs bared, aiming for Jinx's throat.

It never got there. With a curse, Jinx reflexively hexed the creature, sending it tumbling backwards, where it landed with a sickening crack and broke its neck.

Cautiously, Jinx edged towards it. It didn't move, and Jinx relaxed.

"What the hell was _that_ all about?"

A low, rumbling noise from above her was the only response, and she looked up, trying to fight off the growing feeling of dread.

The canopy was alive with glowing white eyes.

--

The creature lurched through the undergrowth, cursing itself for a fool.

It had been lax. The female had managed to get so close to the mountain, and he had relaxed his watch on her, assuming that she would encounter no problems this close to her home.

But he hadn't reckoned on the other denizens of the jungle taking an interest. He had decided to let her live, but his subjects had no way of knowing that.

They would know soon enough.

Assuming they didn't kill her first.

She _would_ not die. The creature nurtured a healthy respect for the inhabitants of the Mountain, and a healthy dread of what they might do if they found he allowed one of their own to die.

Huge forearms ripping through the canopy, he focused on the female's intriguing scent when he heard a high pitched screech from a few bounds ahead of him.

His jaw wide open and a challenge at his throat, he leapt into the fray.

--

A horde of green animals of all shapes and sizes descended upon her, and it was all she could do to manage a scream.

It was futile, she knew. The only person who could possibly hear her was Beast Boy, and he was miles away, and sound asleep. She was dead.

As the first of the creatures, a huge silverback gorilla, landed a foot away from her, a vision from a nightmare burst through the trees, scattering thee horde.

It was larger than a rhino, but built more like a gorilla, with huge, muscular forearms and paws tipped with sharp, curved claws. Its head was similar to both a lion and a wolf, although its ears were pointed. It was crowned with a long, flowing mane, streaked with darker fur than the rest of it.

It was covered in green hair, and its eyes were a bone white.

The australopithecus that lived in the back of Jinx's head went insane at the sight of the beast, running up and down her spine, waving its arms and hooting a warning.

_This is Alpha_, it said. _Submit and live_.

Unable to stand the sight of the creature and its rabid pack, Jinx fell to her knees, screwed her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her ears, hoping that they'd kill her _before_ they ate her.

Suddenly her muffled senses were assaulted by a cacophony of pain. Out of touch with nature though she was, she'd fought Beast Boy (and why did that idea sound so strange, even now, on the brink of a very painful death?) enough times to know the difference between a howl of anger and a howl of pain.

After a second, she realized that this was neither. These were the screeches of the dying.

After a few eternal minutes, the noise ceased, and Jinx got up, slowly, timorously, and opened her eyes to see her saviour.

It was the monster. Claws slick, fur matted with blood, but not a mark on it. It wasn't even breathing heavily. All around it, the clearing had been transformed into a field of gore, the beast standing in the centre like some primal blood god.

It held her in its impassive gaze, and Jinx didn't dare look away.

"Jinx! _Jinx? _Where are you?!"

The beast's batlike ears pricked up when it heard Beast Boy's voice, and in less than a second, it had gone, swallowed by the undergrowth. Moments later, Beast Boy appeared, from the other end of the clearing.

"Jinx! ...Holy _shit_...what happened here?"

Jinx looked at him, and smiled awkwardly.

"I'll tell you later," she said, in something of a daze. "But first, can we find somewhere nice and quiet where I can throw up?"

**--**

**This chapter feels...wrong. Like it doesn't fit, somehow. It's too rushed, and it doesn't really flow with the narrative. Unfortunately, I'm running on a tight plan, chapter wise, and this wouldn't fit split into the next chapter. Likewise, I can't leave it out.**

**Oh, did I confuse anyone yet? The smart ones among you might have guessed what's going on, but for the rest, the answers are coming. Soon. I promise.**


	9. Unravelling

Chapter Nine: Unravelling

**Chapter Nine: Unravelling.**

Jinx paused momentarily to mop sweat from her brow, and gazed forwards. Although the hill was as heavily forested as the rest of the jungle, she could see flashes of flat grey through the trees, and the sight gave her hope and disquieted her in equal measure. Sure, the sight meant that they were close to their goal, finally, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something here was fundamentally _wrong_, something so basic that she was subconsciously ignoring it.

Her mind wandered back to last night. She'd explained as best she could, and Beast Boy had delivered a stern lecture about how any green animals were bad news, but Jinx hadn't really been listening, having been more concerned with keeping the contents of her stomach. She was hungry enough, without decorating the undergrowth with her last meal (more cherry oranges, and some kind of figs). Beast Boy hadn't recognised the animal that had rescued her, and she hadn't expected him to.

Jinx shook her head. This jungle was creepy. She turned back to Beast Boy, who was walking a few metres behind her. Suddenly, a thought struck her.

"Roads."

Beast Boy responded with a quizzical look.

"That's what's missing. Roads. How do people get _into_ this place? It's the middle of the jungle, there's no transportation, there isn't even a _clearing_ around this place" she crested the hill, and the building stood before her, rendering her speechless.

"What the _fuck_ is wrong with this place?" For a few seconds, at least. "This looks like some kind of- of _castle_. And look at that, huge wooden doors, opening onto jungle. What's the point of that, Beast Boy? Beast Boy?" When he didn't respond, she turned around.

Beast Boy looked like he'd seen a ghost. His eyes bulged, his legs quaked, and he raised an unsteady hand to point at the edifice.

"No... no, no, no this is all wrong." He sounded like he was trying to reason with someone, or something. "This wasn't here, it was never here. This is _wrong, damnit_!" He snapped into sudden, impotent anger. "We were _never here_! This was in _France_!" With that his knees gave out, and he dropped to the ground, stunned. "...This is impossible..."

Jinx strode over to Beast Boy, who was still gibbering incoherently.

"Alright, greenie, what's got you so spooked?"

Beast Boy looked up at her, pleading with her. "You don't understand. This _wasn't here_. We were in the Alps. In _France_."

Clearly, Beast Boy was Not At Home at the moment. Time for a little on the job therapy, Jinx style.

"Beast Boy, get a grip or I'll hex your face off."

Bizarrely, the half-hearted threat seemed to work, and Beast Boy seemed to actually see her for the first time since clearing the hill.

"We are _not_ in Africa."

--

Robin stood in front of the other Titans, a hastily constructed slide show idling behind him.

"Alright, this is all the information I have been able to gather on the Quiz's last known associates, the Brotherhood of Evil. We'll go through each one in turn, and see if any useful information comes up. Any questions?"

Three heads shook.

"Alright then." A slide clicked, showing a wizened old man. "General Immortus. A tactical genius through sheer experience, Immortus had fought in every major conflict from the time of Ancient Egypt. Not a "true" immortal, he retained his longevity through frequently drinking an elixir, probably a derivative of the Lazarus Pit. He brought to the Brotherhood the expertise to mastermind any kind of warfare, as well as a highly trained private army." Another slide flicked, showing ranks of grey-clad henchmen with assault rifles. Behind them were several tanks.

"He was the first of the Brotherhood to be defeated. Not fully trusting the other members, Immortus maintained his own base outside of Brotherhood headquarters, which the Doom Patrol were able to cut off and infiltrate.

"Once he was taken down, Immortus was placed in jail, awaiting trial. However, without his elixir prolonging his life, he died before reaching trial."

--

Jinx looked around. "Looks like Africa to me."

"It's not," Beast Boy retorted, with an intensity that frightened her. "I don't know where we are, but it's not Africa."

Jinx's brain whirred, and threw up a card. "But what about that butterfly? That proved we're in Africa, right?"

Beast Boy shook his head. "The chateau."

Jinx waved her hand at the castle. "People could have built it. You haven't been here for a while, right?" She was desperate, and she knew it. But she really didn't want to consider the possibility that they weren't in Africa, because then she'd have to consider where they actually _were_.

"Not this castle. Not this one."

"Right. I've _had_ it with this place. Now come on, I want to go home." With that, she turned and heaved on one of the huge oak doors, which yielded slowly.

Beast Boy was less than enthusiastic. "No way. I am _not_ going in there. No. You can't make me. I'm not going."

Jinx saw that she was in danger of losing Beast Boy again.

"Oh no, you're not going all mystic-crazy on me. Head in the game. Now come _on_." With that, she wrenched Beast Boy by the wrist, jolting him out of his la-la reverie and towards the open door.

"_No!" _Beast Boy jerked backwards and away from her. He looked ready to run.

"_Look_, I am _not_ spending another night out here, alright? I want to go _home_. Now, I can't very well go in there and call your little friends, can I? So _move_."

Beast Boy took a great, shuddering breath, and rubbed his hand over his eyes.

"Alright. Let's get this over with."

With that, the two walked into the castle, neither noticing that the door shut noiselessly behind them.


	10. Clear the Board

Chapter Ten: Clear the Board

**Chapter Ten: Clear the Board.**

Jinx and Beast Boy walked down the corridor in heavy silence. Jinx's natural curiosity demanded that she find out exactly why Beast Boy was so spooked by this place, but she held her tongue for now.

Suddenly, Beast Boy stuck out an arm, halting her progress. Almost as soon as he did so, a rusted circle of metal, easily ten feet tall, and serrated at the edges, rolled lazily out from a hidden partition in the wall. Had it been in working order, it would have been a lethal trap.

"How did you know?"

"I remember."

"_Doom Patrol, advance!"_

Jinx blinked. "Seriously, what's going on here?"

"_Huh. Buzz saws. Just like last time. I'm on this one."_

Beast Boy sighed. "I've been here before. Or a place just like it, anyway."

"_Negative Man, henchmen! Give Robotman some cover!"_

"_Do I have to do everything around here?"_

"Oh. When?"

Beast Boy sighed. "Years ago. With the Doom Patrol."

"_Beast Boy, assist Elastigirl!"_

"_Yes sir!"_

--

"The next member to consider is one Madam Rouge. An elastic Meta of great strength, she provided the Brotherhood with an infiltration expert and general powerhouse.

"'Madam Rouge' is in fact an alias. She hailed from Russia, but adopted the pseudonym, since the Brotherhood's base of operations was in southern France.

"Next, we come to the leader of the Brotherhood, the Brain."

Starfire raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"What was the fate of Madam Rouge?"

"I'll get to that in a moment."

--

Eventually, the pair reached the end of the corridor. A few more traps had been sprung, but they were all damaged beyond repair and easily circumnavigated. With a heave, Jinx slammed her shoulder into the door, which gave with a screech. Without a pause, she grabbed Beast Boy by the wrist and hauled him inside.

"...Holy _shit_."

"_It's over, Brain," Mento declared, with typical melodrama._

"_For you, perhaps. Get them." The Brain was as clipped as ever._

"_Doom Patrol..."_

_Robotman didn't wait for the order, instead charging headlong into a crowd of soldiers. Rita followed his lead, engaging Rouge, and Negative Man dropped to the floor as his soul-self assisted Robotman against the grey horde. Mento looked to his left, and slightly down, to see a nervously grinning Beast Boy._

"_Well, what are you waiting for? Engage Mallah!"_

"_Yes _sir_!" Beast Boy replied enthusiastically, and flew up onto the gangway, where the Brain was observing the battle, guarded by his simian cohort._

"_Mallah, if you would..." the Brain left his order clear._

"_Yes Master." Mallah lumbered towards Beast Boy, who was still grinning. As the gorilla closed in, Beast Boy mimicked his form and attacked, the force of their collision rocking the metal gangway._

"_This is futile, little one," Mallah proclaimed, as he fended off wild swings with a boxer's stance. "Our strength may be equal, but my intellect," here he struck with a low blow, and twisted Beast Boy's arm into a hold, "gives me ze clear advantage."_

_However, Beast Boy simply shuddered, and suddenly Mallah was holding nothing at all, but a green snake was slithering up his arm, which melded into a shape behind him. Before he could turn around, a huge green fist smashed into the back of his head, sending him stumbling forwards. As he regained his balance and turned around, he saw a green Sasquatch shift back into Beast Boy._

"_So I just get stronger."_

--

"The Brain was once a scientist, until an unfortunate lab accident reduced him to a brain in a jar. He destroyed all records of his former life, and killed anyone he could find who knew him before his accident. Safe to say, he was a little unhinged.

"He suffered delusions of grandeur. After a while, he considered himself 'intellect incarnate', which is a little inaccurate. Despite what Hollywood B-movies would have you believe, being a brain in a jar does not necessarily make you a super genius.

--

_Beast Boy and Mallah duelled back and forth, neither retaining the upper hand. Beast Boy was chaos personified in a fight, but Mallah could adapt quickly to anything Beast Boy could throw at him._

_The young hero was tiring. Constant shifting interspersed with combat was instilling a bone-deep weariness that was threatening to overcome adrenaline. In a desperate move, he turned into a bull and charged straight for Mallah._

_It worked. The gorilla was caught off guard and knocked flying. Straight into the Brain._

_The Brain tumbled and fell, an electronic scream lost in the cacophony of battle below. But to two figures in the gangway above, it was all they could hear. Suddenly, it was cut off, replaced by the tinkling of broken glass._

_As Mallah howled as his world collapsed around him, Beast Boy could just make out a series of dull bleeps. They sped up, faster and faster until they were one continuous hum. Then that ceased, and all other noise with it._

_In less than a second, the ground floor was an inferno._

--

"Both Rouge and the Brain were killed, along with most of the Doom Patrol, when the Patrol assaulted their home base, a chateau in France. Details of their demise are slim, since no one has admitted to witnessing it."

Cyborg frowned. "Official reports say that _all_ the Doom Patrol was killed that day. You got some different information?"

Robin shared a glance with Raven. This could be awkward.

--

Skeletons. Bodies. Many were indistinct, as if they were out of focus, but four stood out with perfect clarity.

One skeletal figure lay in the centre of the room, a strange helmet on its head. Another was near him, and swathed in soot-blackened bandages. A bronze statue stood amidst a pile of grey-clad bodies, its eye sockets sunken and black. And some way away from the others, a woman, not skeletal like the others, but a body. Her hair was blackened, and partially burnt off, and she was covered in ash. A good portion of her back was missing, but instead of any visible organs, she seemed to be solid skin-tone all the way through, as if someone had made a play-doh woman and then gouged a chunk out. Jinx noted with a shock that they were all wearing a variant of Beast Boy's costume, black with a purple stripe.

Behind her, Beast Boy gave a cry that was positively _inhuman_, and a clang onto the metal floor indicated that he had fallen over. His breath hitched up madly, and he started crying, great, wracking sobs of pure devastation. Had the situation been different, Jinx might have left him to it; maybe even (in her own unorthodox way) tried to get him to get over it.

Unfortunately, the situation didn't allow for him to bawl his eyes out. Jinx had noticed something that warranted immediate attention.

"...Beast Boy? Beast Boy, get _up_." No reaction from behind her. "I said _get up_. They're _moving_..."

**--**

**Anyone figure out what's going on yet?**


	11. Skeletons in the Closet

Chapter Eleven: Skeletons in the Closet

**Chapter Eleven: Skeletons in the Closet.**

Beast Boy didn't respond, and Jinx wasn't sure he'd heard her, or registered what she said. As the skeletal figures rose smoothly to their feet, Jinx charged her hand with glowing energy and blasted the nearest one without hesitation. The bandaged figure staggered for half a moment, then righted itself, as if it were a puppet being pulled back upright. Desperately, Jinx hammered hex after hex into the approaching figures, to no avail.

The four, in spite of their decayed physiques, moved with all the sure-footed strength they had in life, and Jinx found herself boxed in, backed up against a still raving Beast Boy.

"Beast Boy, get _up_," she hissed over her shoulder. "I could _really_ use a – haguh!" Before she could finish her sentence, an elastic hand was around her throat. Desperately, she grabbed at Beast Boy's arm as she was dragged backwards, and he turned his head to look at her. Oddly, he seemed as serene as she had ever seen him.

Then he blinked, and when his eyes opened again, they were pure white.

Black material bulged then split as wiry muscles ballooned. Silver gloves were ripped by razor claws and shoes were split by huge paws. Flesh became coarse hair, teeth lengthened, and the Beast emerged.

With a booming howl, the creature dived upon a shocked Jinx, barrelling her to the ground. Before she could do so much as gasp the creature was standing over her, with something in its jaws, and Jinx could suddenly breathe again.

Lying down, a wall of green hair less than a foot above her, she felt her throat, which still had something attached to it.

It was a gloved hand.

Gross.

The elastic woman reeled the stump of her arm back in, yanking it from the jaws of the beast. The creature chased after it, leaping upon her and barrelling into the ground. Jinx could see nothing but the frenzied worrying of the thing's back, but the noises she heard were not ones she _ever_ wanted to hear again. Next, the beast span and leapt upon the bandaged man, ripping through his cloth bindings and reducing him to scraps and bone fragments in less than three seconds.

Jinx wanted desperately to look away, but she couldn't. She couldn't deny the feeling that this was something fundamentally _important_, and so she forced herself to watch as the monster that had been Beast Boy (and she knew, just _knew_, that he wasn't in the driver's seat at the moment) traded hammer blows with the metal man, claws raking up sparks and pounding fists crumpling the bronze torso.

Finally, with a tortured shriek of metal, the beast tore the robots arms off, and lethal talons gutted the machine. There was a beat of silence, and Jinx dared to hope that it was over.

Then shards of metal, torn from the robotic man, began hurling themselves at the monster, digging into his flesh. With a deep, booming howl, the creature leapt, pouncing upon the final grisly enemy. In one leap, the beast pinned the cadaver to the floor and a single blow reduced the figure's skull to powder.

As Jinx sat up, keeping a wary eye on the beast, it padded towards her. This in itself helped calm Jinx a little, as she was certain that if it meant to kill her, it would have already. As it got closer, it suddenly spasmed, and the creature buckled and contorted until it was Beast Boy again, wearing the remains of a tattered costume.

"Uhh...what _happened_?"

Jinx wasn't sure how to answer that, so she just stared. Beast Boy suddenly noticed the state of his apparel, and started.

"What? Are my pants gone? Please don't tell me pants are gone again." He quickly checked, and to his relief, the lower half of his costume was largely undamaged, although his torso was almost completely uncovered, and his shoes were ruined. "Okay. It's not the pants. What is it?"

Jinx coughed. "You just turned into that..._thing_ and fought zombies, alright? I'm a little freaked out right about now."

"Oh," Beast Boy replied, and Jinx noticed he was swaying slightly as he stood. "So, what now?"

Jinx was about to shrug when she saw movement on the gangway.

"Up there?"

--

He was coming. Finally, he had returned to the scene of his crime. He would pay for what he did.

--

Beast Boy was still unsteady, so he leant heavily on Jinx as the two made their way up the stairs. It didn't help that he was treating the climb like the walk to the scaffold. Eventually, the two made it up to the top, and were confronted by a strange figure, even by the standards of their surroundings.

An enormous gorilla. Jinx almost laughed, but was stopped by two things.

Beast Boy had tensed up, his muscles locking until he was a statue.

The gorilla was brandishing some kind of device. Jinx peered through the gloom, trying to pick it out, and noted two pertinent details. It had a barrel. It had a trigger. She didn't need to see the schematics.

"_You_," Beast Boy hissed through fanged teeth.

"_Oui_, little one," the gorilla replied, and Jinx wasn't sure whether or not to be surprised that the monkey could talk, or amused that it had a French accent. "Ze hour has come."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your reckoning is at hand, child. It is time to pay for what you did." The creature's gun arm was wobbling now, as he became more manic. "Do you know what you _did_? You took him away! You took my _life _from me; you left me a shell, a walking corpse! He was my everything, and _you killed him_. You _cannot _know what that is like."

"You think I don't _know_?" Beast Boy shouted, his voice cracked with emotion. "I lost my _family_! I was left with _nothing_, _no one_! Don't you talk to me about _loss_!"

Jinx looked back and forth between the two arguing figures with growing dread. It was clear that she wasn't supposed to be here; that this was something intensely personal that she was intruding on. Suddenly, she gasped as she saw all the fight suddenly drain from Beast Boy, leaving, as she saw for perhaps the first time, a scared young boy, lost and alone.

"Look, Mallah", he sighed, his voice sounding weary with age. "You could kill me now, and I wouldn't blame you for wanting to. It was an accident, a stupid accident that was really no one's fault, but it was an accident _I_ caused. If you want to take your revenge, then fine."

Jinx gaped at the boy, and could see Mallah similarly flabbergasted. But Beast Boy wasn't finished.

"But please, if you're gonna kill me, just do this one thing. Ask yourself, what's it gonna change?"

Mallah faltered, and his gun arm dropped.

"Nothing's gonna change. This", and here he waved his arm to encompass the aged battlefield "was never our fight. It was the Brain and the Chief that had the vendetta; we were just roped in to it. So sure, you could shoot me, and I could rip your throat out with my teeth, but in the end it wouldn't be _for_ anything." He looked up into Mallah's dark eyes. "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Mallah was silent for a while, but eventually he spoke.

"Thank you, child." He seemed to gain a measure of solace from Beast Boy's speech, and he relaxed. Suddenly everything changed. He began glaring into the middle distance, his weapon trained on enemies only he could see, his left arm crooked around something invisible, and he began to howl.

"Hah! Come on then, _Gendarmes_. You think you can stop me? You are _welcome _to try!"

Words expended, he unloaded his weapon into the walls, howling manically all the while, when his head jerked back, his fur matted with blood, and he fell to the ground, dead.

**--**

**I know this is a lot later than usual, but I do have a couple of good reasons. Firstly, I realised that the original concept for this chapter was a little thin, and I had to juggle the schedule around a bit to accommodate the changes I made.**

**Secondly, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" has ruled my imagination for the past week or so, ever since I bought season 1. Seriously, it's **_**utterly **_**kickass, and I will probably write for it at some point.**

**Incidentally, I think I am the only person (at least, the only one I've found) that has played the Brain/Mallah romance entirely straight. Odd.**


	12. Move Along

**Chapter Twelve: Move Along.**

Robin cleared his throat. "We now come to the final, and possibly most significant, member of the Brotherhood of Evil, Monsieur Mallah." The slide clicked. There was a moment of silence.

Cyborg coughed. "Err... Rob? You sure you got the right slides? 'Cause-"

"Yes, he's a gorilla. I am aware of that," Robin replied shortly. "It's not _that_ unheard of, you know. Ever hear of Grodd? Or the Ultra-Humanite?" He waved away the possibility of any further primate related discussion, and continued.

"Mallah was the Brian's right hand man-"

"Monkey."

Robin shook his head despairingly. "Thank you Cyborg, it's nice to know Beast Boy is still with us in spirit. As I was saying, Mallah was the Brain's right hand _monkey_. With a loyalty that bordered on fanaticism, and an intelligence quotient that was well over one hundred and seventy, as well as the physical attributes of a gorilla, he was the Brian's bodyguard, henchman and confidante all in one. He was also that only member of the Brotherhood to survive the assault on their home base, although no one knows quite how.

"After that day, he vanished. There are no confirmed sightings of him for well over three years, and it was assumed he had died. Eventually he resurfaced in Germany, where he seemed to be trying to replicate the Brain's final scheme."

Another slide flicked, this time showing blueprints for a device that looked like nothing so much as an enormous tuning fork.

"A black hole generator. An insane idea, of course, and completely unworkable for a lot of reasons, but the Brain had never been known for the rationality of his schemes. Mallah hit a lot of tech labs connected with the Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, a branch of the Helmholtz Association concerned with particle physics, among other things, all over the country before the police caught up with him. They managed to shut down his operation, but Mallah himself escaped. He was on the run for almost a year, but he was cornered after his return to Berlin."

Starfire looked up at this.

"Perhaps it would help if we could question him?"

Robin sighed. "I'm afraid that's not possible. He was killed in the ensuing shootout with the German police."

She deflated. "Oh."

Cyborg did some quick mental mathematics. "How long ago was this?"

Robin nodded. He'd hoped someone would pick up on that. "Almost a month ago."

Raven's brow furrowed. "Then that's our lead."

Robin nodded. "Cy, how long before the T-Ship's ready for a flight?"

"Give me a day."

"Tough. You've got six hours. Everyone, pack enough for a couple of days. We're going to Berlin."

--

As Mallah's gargantuan bulk slumped to the floor, Jinx span to the sound of creaking behind her. A door that she could have _sworn_ hadn't been there before had opened.

Jinx could take a hint. Grabbing Beast Boy by the arm, she dragged him through, and wasn't remotely surprised when it slammed shut behind them.

Jinx peered into the gloom. It appeared that they were at one end of a long corridor. In the spirit of inquiry, she pulsed a hex down the hallway. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw it hit something in the distance. A wall, perhaps? A door?

One way to find out. She started walking. Beast Boy wordlessly fell in behind her.

After nearly twenty minutes of trudging through the gloom, with an unnaturally silent companion, the tension in the air was enough to choke on. Jinx thought she might as well try to break it.

"So... you wanna tell me what happened back there?" she asked, partly because a sledgehammer breaks a bubble as well as s pinprick and partly because she was honestly wondering.

"No. I don't," and Jinx was almost surprised at how _angry_ he sounded, the snap in his voice putting her in mind of nothing so much as a wolf in a bear trap but that all fell apart in the next few seconds.

"I just want to go home," he admitted, in a voice that was a breath above a whimper. "I want to go home and I want to sleep and right now I just want to lie down and I never wanna wake up again but that'll pass, it always does and _I just want to get _out_ of here_."

Great. She _really_ didn't need him cracking up on her. He needed some kind of support, or he'd drown in a tide of melodramatic emotion.

"I know," she replied, surprising herself with how much heart she put into the words. "I want out of here too. We're gonna do it, too. We're gonna find whoever's in charge of this craziness and kick their _ass_ until they send us back." She meant it, too.

Beast Boy chuckled and Jinx dared to hope he might have cheered up at least a little. At least enough to be helpful and rational and above all _calm_.

_After all, he's going to be no help if he's too busy being depressed to do anything, is he?_

And she'd seen what happened when his brain broke. She didn't want it to break again. At least, not anywhere near _her_.

The two continued in silence a little longer, but this time the lack of noise was markedly less stifling, and almost, well, comfortable, really. Then, without warning, she lost her footing, tumbling backwards, which was really strange, since there hadn't been any stumbling at all, and Beast Boy's pained grunt told her that he'd fallen too, and suddenly she was tumbling forwards, head over heels, and Beast Boy was stretched out like Superman or something and he was plummeting straight forwards and hey, when had gravity decided that the floor was suddenly a wall?

Jinx's eyes barely had time to widen as the corridor's end came rushing up to meet them and she briefly glimpsed an old wooden door before she was too close to see the door and all she saw were knots in a plank and all of a sudden darkness claimed her.

**--**


	13. Even When Your Hope is Gone

**Chapter Thirteen: Even When Your Hope is Gone.**

It was dark, and Jinx knew that opening her eyes wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. She tried anyway. Yup. Completely black. Not even a flicker. She cast around, trying to find any sign of her companion. Nothing. She tapped her foot, trying to get a feel for whatever it was she was standing on. It made no sound. She bent down and tried to touch it, but her hands were completely numb, and felt puffy and inflated.

Suddenly, there was a whisper of sound, completely unidentifiable, and then there was pain.

It was like someone had stabbed her brain with white-hot needles, like hooks were dug into her mind and pulled on long chains, like a monstrous hand was violating her thoughts and dragging out things from some forgotten throwback of a corner of her brain, thoughts and feelings that should never have troubled her conscious mind. She lost her mind in that moment, her ego shattering into a million pieces leaving the id to rise up and crush the superego and reign supreme.

It was intoxicating, the final moments of realisation- that she would never have to worry about abstract concepts like faith, loyalty, society; that in the end, it all boiled down to who was strongest. Life, when you got down to it, was simple. She had taken the first steps to realising this long ago, when she had come to the absurdly obvious realisation that the rule of Law was just doing what a group of long-dead men had decided was right. Once she'd seen that, it had been absurdly easy to decide to defy those pieces of paper, to defy the opinions of dead men who had never _envisioned_ a world like hers-

But she hadn't made that decision, had she? It had been made _for_ her.

And just like that, the spell was broken. Her sense of self returned, and the primal hunger that had overwhelmed her was dragged, shackled, back into the murk at the tip of her spine.

Getting to her feet (when had she fallen? She couldn't remember that), she looked around the blackness, although for what exactly she couldn't say. As she cast around, her gaze flicked upwards, for less than half a second, but what she saw locked her eyes.

She gazed to the heavens, and knew fear.

The thing that loomed half-seen through the blackness, like some elder god parting the clouds was indescribable. The closest that she would ever get to describing it, on the one occasion that she would later speak of her experiences, with the only person who could empathise, was that it was an amalgamation of everything she had ever feared, from the horror film she had snuck downstairs to watch when she was barely six years old to the drunken visage of her father (coming home from the bars after drowning not so much his sorrows, but his _anger_, his anger against the employer that had fired him, the girlfriend that had left him (it didn't matter which one, they had all seemed the same to Jinx) the wife that had died and left him with a daughter that could destroy things with a wave of her hand, and didn't know how to stop, the barman that was slowly killing him, the man that had bumped into him on the way home, and above all his own _weakness_, his inability to cope) to the voice of the cyclopean man that she had only heard speak a handful of sentences, and the day she had woken up to discover _she had no control over her life_.

The creature loomed over her cowering form, a hand wrapped in shadow come to claim her. For a moment, she considered running. The thing would catch her, that much was clear, but for a few more blissful seconds, she would be free.

"Fuck _that_."

Jinx straightened up, looked the beast in the eyes, and loosed a hex, straight into its gaping maw.

The thing recoiled, in shock as much in pain, it seemed. Heartened, she fired another volley. The blasts of pink were swallowed by the darkness, but each hex caused the monster to retreat, and each time the bands around her chest loosened, until she was laughing in triumph and flinging energy with wild abandon until she stopped, elated beyond reason, as she saw the thing was gone.

Chuckling in a kind of disbelieving relief, she flopped down, and began to wonder how she was going to get out of... wherever she was.

Then the whispers started, accusing voices spinning tales of woe into her ears, from the mundane (the man who was late to work because his car had exploded) to the hyperbolic (the woman who lost her job because her store was trashed, lost her home because she couldn't pay the rent, and lost her life to a mugger on the streets), but they all had a common theme.

They were all her fault.

Jinx had never killed anyone. She had taken great pride in the fact. Sure, she had never been especially _careful_ not to kill anyone, but the fact remained.

The voices said it didn't matter. In myriad small ways she had hastened the deaths of dozens. She had destroyed homes, destroyed businesses, destroyed lives.

She had always thought murder was an absolute. Everything anyone did affected someone somewhere down the line.

Nevertheless, the voices said.

Jinx felt her walls crumbling. She screamed, she hollered, she threatened. Nothing worked. Nothing she threw up could save her from the gnawing in the pit of her stomach, the fierce hunger that only one thing could sate.

"I'm sorry," she croaked, a broken shell. "I'm sorry."

The voices silenced, and abruptly, mercifully, unconsciousness came for her.

--

Beast Boy came to face down in a pool of water. Spluttering, he jerked upwards, and looked around.

"Jinx? You there? ...Dude, that was so _freaky_. I could _taste_ blue. Weird, huh? ...Jinx?"

His voice trailed into nothing as he observed his surroundings. He was in a dilapidated cell, all rusted iron and flagstones, and the floor was submersed in about half a foot of water. There was the constant drip of water into water, and the sounds of a storm filtered though from outside the stone walls. The scene was illuminated poorly by a couple of spluttering braziers in the hall outside the cell, and he could see a stairway on one side and a corridor to more cells on his left.

With a gasp, he saw Jinx's prone body in the water, and he dropped to his knees beside her. A frantic finger to her neck relieved him when he felt a pulse, but he was worried about letting her lie in the water.

Seeing nothing else to keep her out of the water, he sat cross-legged, and pulled her onto his lap. There wasn't anything else he could do; just hope she would wake up before she caught hypothermia, and hope she had a plan (that had never been his department, he could cope for himself just fine, after all, he knew exactly what he was capable of, and he was good at adapting. Sit him down and tell him he had to come up with something, make him responsible for someone else, and he fell apart.)

It was cold.

He missed his shirt.

**--**

**Huzzah for Beast Boy's point of view. And welcome to Part II. Trust me; things only get stranger from here. Answers will come... eventually.**


	14. Prison of the Mind

**Chapter Fourteen: Prison of the Mind.**

Beast Boy had rarely felt quite as helpless as he did in that moment, waiting for Jinx to wake up, his enhanced hearing trained on her heartbeat. Not that he'd know what to do if it faltered, anyway.

Sure, he could look after himself easily, but that hardly took effort at all. Shifting could take care of the most serious of injuries, and his internal organs could adapt to neutralise any poisons, as well as throwing off practically any disease.

But his survival skills were all completely selfish. He didn't carry any medical supplies at all, along with the barest of survival tools. He'd never thought he'd need them. After all, _he_ didn't. He'd just never counted on anyone else relying on him. He'd never been in that situation, and never thought he would be.

But as he waited, eyes locked on Jinx's chest (y'know, to make sure she was still _breathing_ properly, and that's where the lungs are located, in the chest, so he was simply looking from the point of view of first aid, and he was doing an admirable job of keeping that in mind, really) he wished he had some idea of what to do.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, his vigilance was rewarded by the sght of two slitted eyes flickering open.

"Jinx!" he cried, genuinely pleased to see her. "You're awake!" Suddenly, things seemed a little more on track, and he managed a grin.

"Guuh..." she replied coherently, as her vision swam. Her eyes focused, taking in the scene. "Are we home? ...We're not home, are we?"

Beast Boy shook his head, still smiling, but his eyes softened.

"Great." Jinx flopped back over his knee, the back of her head brushing the water. "So. What's the plan this time? Any more freaky things to expect?"

Beast Boy sighed. "I guess so. It looks like we're in a prison or something this time, but from the looks of things no one's been locked up here for a _long_ time. Well, 'cept us, of course."

Jinx lay back, Beast Boy's prattling a background noise. Her head still hurt from whatever it was that had just happened, and the experience had given her a lot to think about, and even more that she didn't want to consider.

_Head in the game, Jinx. You can evaluate your life once you're sure your life is going to be substantially longer than the next five minutes._

"So, I was kinda hoping you'd have a plan or something."

Jinx blinked. "Have you tried the door?"

"No. You think I should?"

Jinx stared at him.

"Okay okay, sheesh. You're worse than Raven." Beast Boy, however didn't move. In response to her quizzical look, he coughed meaningfully.

"Err, you'll kinda have to get off me first."

Jinx cocked her head. "What?" She noticed what exactly she was lying on for the first time. "Oh. Right." She stood, examining her outfit, which was soaked, torn and dirty. It was enough to make one weep.

Beast Boy made his way over to the cell door and gave it an experimental push. To his surprise, instead of opening (which would have been ideal) or remaining stubbornly closed (which he expected) the barred door simply collapsed outwards, smashing into the floor with a cacophany that made Jinx jump.

"O...kay. Which way you wanna go?" Beast Boy asked as he peered down the corridor. Jinx shrugged at his back.

"Each way seems as good as the other, but what do I know?" she said. "One might lead to a five star hotel while the other leads to a pit of deadly snakes. Or maybe they're both snakes. Actually, given my luck and experience of this sitution so far, odds are both lead to deadly snakes, and the only difference is how quickly the snakes kill you," she groused to herself, and would have continued, but Beast Boy stuck up a hand to silence her.

"Someone's coming," he hissed.

"Where from?" she whipered back.

"The stairs."

"Then let's go the other way."

"No time. They're almost here," he said, but frowned as he said it. The footsteps hadn't appeared gradually from far away, as one might expect. They had just... started at the top of the stairs. Which was odd.

Jinx, while Beast Boy was puzzling over this development, was facing herself towards the stairway, mentally tallying up her condition. It didn't bode well.

"Here they come," Beast Boy murmured. "Be ready." Jinx nodded.

Unfortunately, neither of them were ready for the figure that descended the stairs. When Beast Boy recognised them, his jaw started impotently waggling as he tried to make some coherent sense of the situation.

"Holy _fuck_" Jinx swore. "It's..._me_."

And it was. The figure was Jinx's double in every way but one: her eyes were pulsing with red light.

"Huh? But...how...bwah?" Beast boy finished incoherently.

Jinx wasted no time asking questions, and swung her arm in a sweeping arc, loosing a hex. Her doppleganger performed a lazy cartwheel backwards, ducking below the blast, and launched a riposte as soon as she was on her feet. Jinx met this with a hex of her own, and the two exploded in midair.

In theory, the fight should have been perfectly even. However, the "real" Jinx was tired, hungry, and distracted, and it didn't take long for her mimic to get the upper hand.

As Jinx stumbled backwards, gracelessly avoiding an attack by falling on her rear, Beast Boy made his move.

Hefting the fallen barred cell door up from the floor, he hurled it bodily towards the ersatz Jinx. As the fake fell to the ground, pinned beneath the weight of corroded metal, he grabbed the real Jinx by the wrist and ran down the corridor, deeper into the prison.


	15. Looking for Answers

**Chapter Fifteen: Looking for Answers.**

It was late afternoon when the T-Ship touched down in Berlin, and fog was heavy in the air. Robin leapt from his cockpit the second the ship had landed, and waited impatiently as the rest of the Titans disembarked, his cape wrapped protectively around him.

"Alright, first things first, does anyone here know German?"

Cyborg shrugged. "A little, just enough to order a cup of coffee, that sort of thing."

Robin nodded. "How about you, Raven?"

She shook her head. "Technically, but I haven't really been focusing on modern German. If you want someone to interpret five-hundred year old texts, then I can help you. Otherwise, it's cup-of-coffee territory for me."

Robin sighed. "Well, it looks like I'll be doing most of the talking, then." He was about to give the order to move out when Starfire suddenly stepped forwards.

"Yes, Star?"

She gave no verbal reply, and Robin was about to ask again when her arm snaked out and grabbed him by the hair and pulled him into a sudden and certainly unexpected kiss.

After about thirty seconds, she relinquished her grip, and let go. Robin staggered backwards, and almost fell over.

"Err..." he stammered, trying desperately to force his thoughts into rational working order and recover his lost poise, fighting against both Cyborg's muffled laughter and his own rising blush, "what, exactly, was that in aid of?"

Starfire smiled innocently, and responded. "_Übersetzung._"

Robin blinked. "Ah. So, you can learn languages through, err..."

"Lip contact," Starfire finished for him mercifully. "Indeed. It is most useful."

"Right, good, that's helpful to know. Anyway, Titans, let's move!" Robin declared with as much aplomb as he could muster, and led the group out into the foggy city. The others fell him behind him, Cyborg still chuckling uncontrollably, and Raven hung back with Starfire, bringing up the rear.

After a few minutes, Raven inclined her head towards Starfire and spoke softly.

"Wait a minute. You initiated...ahem...'lip contact' with Robin before, when you first arrived on this planet. How come you didn't learn German then?"

Starfire said nothing still smiling, although her face began to bear the trappings of a devious smirk.

"Unless..." understanding was accompanied by a roll of violet eyes; "you can be quite underhanded, you know, when you want to be."

Starfire pursed her lips and held an index finger to them, stifling a giggle.

--

Jinx stumbled into a run, following a smear of green as it darted along endless corridors of grey stone and rusted iron. She lost count of the times she almost tripped, but forced herself to keep moving as fast as she could, until circumstances intervened.

"Stitch!" she gasped, and Beast Boy turned and stopped, Jinx grabbing at her side and leaning heavily on the wall.

"Okay," he said, as they both greedily gulped great lungfuls of air "I think we lost her."

Before Jinx could reply, the two heard measured footsteps from directly behind them.

"Shit!"

Beast Boy wasted no time cursing, instead grabbing Jinx by the arm (again, and she couldn't find the time to be annoyed by that, although she was sure she would be later) and taking off blindly.

"How does she _do_ that?" he muttered to himself, and then turned to Jinx. "You can't teleport or something, can you?"

"Don't you think- that if I could- do something like that- that I would have- _done_-it by now?" she replied as testily could be managed while struggling to breathe.

"Point."

--

Cyborg glanced at his arm. It had been ten minutes since Robin had entered the bowels of the Berlin Police Station, and since then the Titans had lingered in the waiting room, drawing interested and slightly wary looks from several brown-and-black uniformed officers.

With a slight start, he noticed one of these officers was heading towards them, and he nudged Starfire. After a brief exchange, she turned to the others.

"He says we have been granted access to the evidence we require, and he will escort us to Robin."

Cyborg nodded. "Then let's not keep your boyfriend waiting, shall we?"

Starfire flushed but nodded nonetheless, and Raven gave a long-suffering sigh as she stood to follow.

--

Robin was poring over a heavy file when the Titans arrived, and barely spared them a glance.

"It doesn't look good. The only thing Mallah was carrying at the time was a gun, and they haven't found any evidence of a base at all. The weirdest thing they found was this."

Here he pointed to a photograph of a strange electronic device. "This is a device that is a variant on the theory of a deadman's switch. We don't have access to the actual item at the moment, but if need be we can probably ask for it.

"The concept of a deadman's switch is a device that kicks in if the human operator is incapacitated. Normally it's used in trains and the like, to prevent accidents. This is a twist on the same theory. In this case, this device was wired to Mallah's pulse, and when it stopped, the machine sent out a signal of some kind. We don't know what exactly happened when it did so, unfortunately, and I suggest that that's where we start."

Cyborg nodded. "Alright. Give me an hour and I might have something. By the way, do you have the exact date Mallah was killed?"

Robin nodded. "Here." He looked down at the file. "It says it was...the twelfth of October. At four fifteen pm."

Cyborg nodded, and sat in his chair.

"Why? What are you looking for?"

The metallic man shrugged. "I dunno. Anything out of the ordinary, I suppose." With that, Cyborg's human eye unfocused as he logged on to the nearest wireless network. In this case, it meant hacking the police station's password, but he was sure that they wouldn't mind too much.

Robin nodded. "Alright. Starfire, Raven, take a look at this file, see if you find anything interesting. I'm going to the scene of the crime."

Raven frowned. "Why? It's not like you're going to find anything useful, not after all this time."

Robin shook his head. "You're probably right. But I don't want to leave anything to chance, and I might be able to speak to some of the people in the bank. Maybe someone saw something that the police missed."

Starfire blinked. "Bank? Which bank is this?"

"Oh. I didn't mention? That's what Mallah was robbing at the time. The Commerzbank."

"Catchy," Raven supplied.

Robin didn't reply to that, instead turning for the door. "Is everyone clear on their assignments?"

Three variants on the theme of 'yes' answered him, and he nodded in satisfaction.

"Then let's get to it."


	16. Jailbreak

**Chapter Sixteen: Jailbreak.**

Starfire sighed for the third time in five minutes, and Raven stared at her sidelong. It was clear that she wasn't concentrating on the folder, although where exactly her mind had wandered to was a mystery. The little ball of directed emotion in the back of her mind indicated that she was worrying about something, and it seemed like she was worrying a lot about it, but Starfire's emotions had to be filtered down through several gallons of detached aloofness before Raven could try for any kind of detailed analysis.

The alien exhaled dramatically again, and Raven glanced at Cyborg. Unfortunately for her, _he _at least was deep in concentration, sifting through cyberspace, and it would take a lot more than sighing to get him to emerge. A napalm bomb to the head perhaps, but even then Raven would give it only a fifty-fifty chance.

So it was down to Raven to ask what was troubling her.

Great.

"...Starfire? Are you alright?" she asked, trying desperately to sound like she cared, but not too much.

"No. No I am not alright." Starfire shook her head. "I am worried. I am worried that this endeavour will lead to nothing more than a dead end, and that we shall be able to do nothing to aid Beast Boy." She shivered, as if from the cold, and hugged her arms. When she next spoke, it was in a far softer tone. "In truth, it has occurred to me that he may already be dead."

Raven sat stunned. She had had the thought that going to Germany was a collosal waste of time, of course. The odds were slim indeed that anything they could find here would be of actual use in getting Beast Boy back. But the thought that Beast Boy might be no where to get back _from_...

It was a horribly persuasive thought. The crazy bitch hadn't exactly elaborated on her plans before vanishing, and the only real detail they'd got from the H.I.V.E. was that she had made Beast Boy and Jinx vanish in a puff of smoke. Now she thought about it, she could have just as easily have-

No. She would _not_ think like that. She _could _not think like that.

Besides, Beast Boy was annoying enough and stubborn enough to be functionally immortal. It had been one of the constants of Raven's life, that Beast Boy Would Never Leave Her Alone. She had, after a _long_ acclimatisation period, grown used to it, and even drawn a strange kind of comfort from it. After all, if you're never left alone, you never get to be lonely.

With this in mind, she gripped Starfire by the shoulder, and spoke forcefully.

"Don't think like that. It won't do any good. We need to focus on what we _can_ do."

Starfire looked at her, chillingly composed. "And if...?"

Raven sagged. "Then we deal with that as it comes." _And there won't be enough of that bitch left to fill a match box, and I don't care _what_ kind of superpowers she has._

A low hum of a fan issued from somewhere within Cyborg's chassis, and his eye pulsed from a low red of standby to a bright glow, interrupting Raven's murderously dark thoughts.

"I found something."

--

"I think we lost her," Beast Boy gasped, after rounding another corridor.

"What, again? How many times are we gonna have to lose her before she stays lost?" Jinx replied, leaning heavily on the wall.

Beast Boy scowled. "Can't you run any faster?"

Jinx shot him as dirty a look as she could reasonably manage. "I'm sorry, but it's kind of hard to run in _platform boots_, and before you ask, _no _I am _not_ taking them off, and...why are you giving me that look?"

Beast Boy didn't respond, but as the measured clop of footsteps became audible, he turned into a huge gorilla and grabbed jinx in one arm before lumbering down the corridor, a verdant King Kong lumbered with an oversized and screeching Ann Darrow.

Admittedly, they did go faster.

Unfortunately, Jinx's doppelgänger did not appear to suffer from the effects of impractical footwear, and it didn't take long before the ominous clack of measured footsteps caught up with them.

"Now what?" Jinx asked, from her uncomfortable position in the crook of Beast Boy's arm.

He set her down, and glanced around before his gaze alighted on a barred window. He lumbered over to it, and, with a short grunt of exertion, ripped the bars from the wall, leaving a hole just large enough to squeeze through. That accomplished, he shifted back into his human form and proffered his hand.

Jinx was not impressed. "Nuh uh. I can see where you're going with this, and you are _crazy_."

Beast Boy scowled; their peruser's footsteps were beating a tattoo on his inner ear.

"Look, do you want to avoid what is almost certainly a painful death?"

When Jinx provided no response, he continued.

"Then jump out of this window."

Jinx simply rolled her eyes.

"Wow. You really know how to present a convincing argument."

Wit exhausted, Beast Boy grabbed Jinx and bodily pushed her through the hole, in spite of her loud protests. Without a backward glance, he dived after her.

What he had expected was a fall of maybe a couple of stories. What he _got_ was actually a drop of a couple of stories, followed by a sheer cliff face of about two hundred feet. Seeing this, he automatically shifted into a falcon, and plummeted towards the pale figure some distance below him.

When he reached Jinx, he desperately pulled up and his body writhed until he was several hundred times his previous size, an enormous pterosaur once more. Luckily for him, Jinx didn't struggle when he grabbed her shoulders this time, and he glided slowly through the fog towards the ground.

Beast Boy was confused greatly by the sight of chimney stacks and slated roofs, and when he touched down and returned to the form of a human, he felt cobblestones beneath his feet.

"This is all very, very weird," he declared, seconds before Jinx hit him on the back of the head again.

"What was that for? I saved us from the crazy you!"

"You _threw me out of a window!_" Jinx hissed. "Now come on, let's move."

Beast Boy looked up, but saw no sign of their prison, apart from the vague outline of an even blacker patch of darkness in the fog.

"You don't think _that_ was enough to lose them?"

"I don't care about that right now. I want to find somewhere to sleep and possibly, if I'm going to be optimistic, eat."

Beast Boy sighed. "Alright. Let's go."

The pair wandered through the foggy streets jumping at shadows, until they were drawn by a single light, muted by the fog. The glow turned out to be illuminating what looked like a bar sign, and the pair tumbled gratefully into the building, not caring that it could well be a trap.

They found themselves inundated with warmth, light, and peculiarly appetizing smells, so it took some time to acclimatise. After about five minutes of standing in the entrance, Beast Boy managed to filter the scene before him down to comprehensible levels.

He cleared his throat, and spoke in a measured, clear tone.

"Jinx?" he asked. "You know how I usually try _not_ to swear, in keeping with my line of work?"

"Uh huh," she replied tonelessly.

"Good. I hope you'll take me seriously then when I ask what in the name of _fuck _is this shit?"

**--**

**I hate this chapter, with a passion. It just feels so damn awkward. But it's late enough as it is, and I want to get on with the story.**

**Okay, that's the last of the Titans for a while, and the next chapter may be late too. Mostly because I'm cajoling my sister (who goes by the handle Crooked Mick on DeviantArt) into drawing the scene our protagonists are currently gaping at. It's important that you get the right image in your heads, I think.**

**Oh, and in case you were wondering, the next chapter will probably be the height of weirdness in this story. At least for a while.**

**And damnit, the BB/Jinx _will_ be coming, soon. I promise.**

**And if I catch any of you fuckers reviewing solely on this huge distended A/N, I will spew abuse at you like a sixteen year old who's just ingested a litre bottle of vodka.**


	17. Midnight at the King's Elephant

**Chapter Seventeen: Midnight at the King's Elephant.**

The tavern was furnished in a rustic, almost quaint style, all long oak beams and what looked like candles as the only lighting. The ochre walls were stained with smoke and age, but colour was added by a number of paintings and newspaper clippings on the wall. The tables, at which several patrons sat, drinking from unadorned glasses, were sparsely decorated, but religiously clean.

All of these details completely escaped the notice of our two heroes, since they were too busy gawking at the patrons.

Beast Boy regained his wits first, and shook his head.

"Soo... you want me to see if we can get a room?"

"Yeah... you do that," Jinx replied, distractedly. Her attention was fixed on one of the patrons sitting at a table. It was a short thing, its forelimbs resting on the table, birdlike claws resting lightly on the wood. As she watched, the thing turned its white head and opened its long beak, emitting a series of trills at a small orange...bird? Fish? Mouse? Jinx couldn't tell. Either way, the tiny creature nodded and hopped off the table, running across the floor, deftly avoiding what Jinx guessed to be a kind of marsupial orang-utan before she lost sight of it.

Jinx's brow furrowed. Somehow, the black and white creature that was waddling across the floor on legs clearly not designed for moving it around was arrestingly familiar...

Meanwhile, Beast Boy made his way hesitantly to the bar, almost walking into a six foot pillar of hair that made a kind of weird mumbling noise when he apologised to it. Once he arrived at the bar, he stood waiting as the bartender, a tall, long bodied thing covered in either downy feathers or very soft fur that looked it had once been white until an unfortunate accident involving a vat of tea placed a bottle of amber liquid in front of one of his clients, a monkey covered in golden hair, who grasped the bottle eagerly, accompanied by a swish of its ratlike tail.

Beast Boy, although half inclined to watch and see how the creature would manage to drink, seeing as the bottle was the size of its torso (and the creature didn't seem to have a _mouth_), nevertheless turned to the innkeeper, and looked it in the eyes.

Or at least tried to. The thing's head reminded him of a hammerhead shark, but... more owlish.

"...Hey. You got a room for two, dude?"

The innkeeper regarded him gravely.

"Wark."

Beast Boy scratched his head. "Was that a yes or no?"

This time the innkeeper nodded.

"Could we rent it? Please?"

The innkeeper tapped a long finger onto the bar. Instantly another of the little orange things scampered up to the innkeeper, and the two engaged in what looked like a hurried conversation, the 'wark's and squeaks flying fast. After a moment, the orange creature leapt from the bar and hurried off towards the back rooms.

"Thanks, dude." Beast Boy nodded, as Jinx walked up behind him.

"We got a room?" she asked.

"Yeah...I think."

"Good enough for me."

"Wark?" the innkeeper inquired, politely.

Jinx turned to look at him, befuddled.

"What's he saying?"

"Beats me."

The innkeeper sighed heavily, and gestured to the pumps. "Wark?"

"Oh...Oh! I get it, do we want a drink? Yeah, sure, I guess." Beast Boy replied.

The innkeeper nodded, fetched a clean glass and poured Beast Boy a drink of the same amber liquid all the other patrons were drinking.

Beast Boy sniffed it. "Beer. Figures."

Jinx's nose wrinkled. "Could I have water, please?"

The innkeeper nodded enthusiastically, and poured Jinx a pint of beer.

"I said...never mind."

Both sat on bar stools, and Beast Boy raised his glass.

"Well, here's to the fact that neither of us are dead yet."

"Hear hear," Jinx replied, and both drank, Jinx making a face as she did so.

"Ugh. I don't know how people can like this stuff."

Beast Boy shrugged. "I don't know, I kinda like it."

Jinx shook her head. "Look at you, contravening all kinds of laws."

He rolled his eyes. "I don't think the drinking age is twenty one here, somehow."

"How'd you figure that one out?"

Beast Boy nodded at the innkeeper. "He served us, didn't he?"

"I guess so." They sat in silence, both drinking, albeit reluctantly in Jinx's case. Casting around, Jinx's gaze roved around their surroundings, until her eyes rested upon a creature that reminded her of a kangaroo, covered in long shaggy fur, that hopped up from its stool and sat on the bar, picking at a bowl of nuts with one arm. Its long face gravely observed a beetle that was hopping up and down next to the bowl, and handed it a nut.

With a blast of realisation, things suddenly made more sense.

Not _much_ more sense, but it was a start.

As she turned to share her revelations with Beast Boy, she noticed that his attention was elsewhere. He was watching, fascinated, as the innkeeper carried a glass over to...a large stone egg, easily seven feet tall, standing by the bar.

The thing looked like it was carved from granite, with a few lines and dots carved about three quarters of the way up that _could_ be called a face, if one were feeling charitable. It was, to all intents and purposes, a huge lump of stone. It even had a bright red beetle scuttling over it.

Nevertheless, the innkeeper set a pint glass down in front of it, with great care. It 'wark'ed several times, the egg remaining silent the whole way through. Eventually, the innkeeper moved away, seemingly satisfied.

"Well, that was odd," Jinx said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah."

Jinx was about to launch into her theory, but decided against it for the moment. She'd tell him in the morning, after they were both rested. She took a draught, draining her glass, and turned back to the egg, for want of anything better to do.

Its glass was half empty.

Jinx blinked. The glass was still...no it wasn't. It was now two thirds empty. She looked away, then looked back. The glass was completely drained.

Jinx shook her head and looked away. There was only so much weirdness she could take in one evening.

The return of the small orange thing prompted the innkeeper to reach under the bar and produce a large leather bound book, which he placed in front of Jinx and Beast Boy. He opened it, and turned to a fresh page, divided into several columns, before swivelling it to face them and handing them a fountain pen.

Beast Boy examined it. "Oh, it's a signing in book. Okay then." He took the pen and scrawled 'Beast Boy' on one line, and wrote 'Jinx' on the line below.

The innkeeper took one look at the names and scowled. He took the pen from Beast Boy and scribbled out what he had written, before gesturing pointedly to the hieroglyphs that marked the top of the column.

"What?"

Jinx coughed. "I think he wants our names. As in actual name, not a call sign, epithet, pithy codename, nickname, or _nom de plume_." She had drunk her alcohol quite quickly, and on an empty stomach, and it had gone to her head somewhat.

"But...oh." Beast Boy sighed. "Alright then. I'll go first," he declared, his voice saying _let's just get it over with_ more eloquently than he ever could. He took the pen and wrote quickly, before pushing the book and pen towards Jinx.

She couldn't resist a look. "Garfield Logan? Nice," she smirked, before writing her name and attempting to shove it back to the innkeeper. Beast Boy, however, intercepted it.

"Fair's fair, and you saw mine." He glanced down. "Nicole Diaz?" He looked disappointed, and Jinx bristled.

"What? Something wrong with my name?"

"Well..." Beast Boy squirmed on his stool. "It's just not _funny_. I got a stupid name, and I can't get you back on that count."

Jinx, in spite of herself, smiled. "Oh well. You'll just have to deal with it."

The innkeeper, having reclaimed his book, hopped out from behind the bar, and Beast Boy found his initial impression had been incorrect. The innkeeper was in fact barely three feet tall, with short stumpy legs and a long prehensile tail that ended in a kind of fingered arrangement. As he lead them towards the back rooms, Beast Boy couldn't resist a peek over the side of the bar. The innkeeper had been standing on a tall stool, on coasters.

Shaking his head, he ran to keep up with Jinx and the innkeeper, who was holding a lantern with his tail as he lead them through the corridors to a room, which he unlocked, presenting the key to Jinx with a flourish and a 'wark' before making his way back to the bar. Beast Boy took one step into the room and noticed a problem.

Sure, it was a room for two. But there was a double bed.

"Err... I guess I can sleep on the floor-"

Jinx sighed. "Look. I'm tired, you're tired, the last time either of us slept was in a jungle. You take one side, I'll take the other. As long as your hands don't wander _too_ much," here she winked, purely for the amusement she derived from watching him blush, his face turning a _very_ strange shade of brown, "I'll manage."

Her piece said, she kicked off her shoes and tumbled into blissful oblivion.

**--**

**Holy update delays, Batman!**

**Why are you still here? Go to my profile, near the top, and click the link to the picture. Seriously. GO.**

**Now, you will notice that it is in a new window (unless you opened it as a new tab). This means you can say nice things about the picture, as long as you have a DA account, which odds are at least one of you does, and you can say things about this chapter, too. Although whether they are nice or not I leave entirely to your discretion.**

**Also, if anyone is following Knives, fear not, for I shall courageously attempt to juggle this and Knives at the same time, updating every three days, on average.**


	18. Head Case

**Chapter Eighteen: Head Case.**

Jinx's eyes blearily opened the next morning to a vision of green, and she almost jerked backwards before the events of yesterday flitted through her mind, and she slowly let out the breath she didn't remember holding.

She should get up. There were things she had to do, and she wanted to gather more evidence to support her theory. But she didn't. It had been so long since she had slept in an actual bed, and her subconscious seemed determined to make the most of it. So she stayed, against her better judgement.

This close, barely inches separating them, Jinx studied Beast Boy's features. Robbed of the animation that took hold when he was awake, he seemed... stern; solemn. Two words she would have never thought that she would use to describe the green boy.

Or, she would never have considered it before this.

Before, she had derided the concept of the altruistic hero. She had been sure that these costumed vigilantes were driven to their work by something other than a love of creation and all its wonderful creatures. Guilt, an inferiority complex, a psychopathic streak, hell, a decent proportion probably got off on this sort of thing. This trip- if her theory was correct- had done nothing to change that belief. It was painfully obvious to see what drove Beast Boy.

And there was the thing. It was painful. Where she should have felt little more than a sense of smug superiority, seeing the delusions of heroism stripped away and revealed for what they actually were, instead she just had an unpleasant feeling in her gut that she couldn't identify, and didn't really want to, and a growing sense of _anger_. Anger at the world that could _do _this kind of thing to people, and more disturbingly, anger at Beast Boy himself. He had _no right_ to be like he was. After all, look at her. She hadn't had things anywhere _near_ as bad as him, and look how she had turned out. He made her feel weak.

But more than that, the formless churning in her gut was telling her that he was _broken_. After what she had gone through, she had been pretty much _expected_ to be a jaded cynic. By that measure, he ought to be downright _suicidal. _But he seemed to exist with his metaphorical fingers in his ears, _la la I can't hear you_ to all his problems. He was broken, and to her growing horror, she found herself wanting to help fix him.

Oh God help her, she'd started to _care_.

That did it. She was getting up _now_.

--

Raven and Starfire followed in Cyborg's wake as he left the police station, calling Robin on his arm.

"Robin, we've got a lead."

"_Talk to me."_

"It took a while, but I found that at the _exact_ moment Mallah's heart stopped beating, an abandoned warehouse north of the Tiergarten collapsed quite suddenly. It's worth checking out, at the very least."

"_Alright, give me the co-ordinates and I'll meet you there."_

--

In the end, to Raven's eternal embarrassment, the three Titans had ended up having to catch a bus. When they arrived at the gutted building, Robin was standing waiting with his arms folded.

Raven raised an eyebrow. "You resort to public transport too?"

He shook his head. "Taxi. Anyway, let's get down to business."

He walked through the doorway, onto the pile of rubble that was the floor. The walls were still mostly standing, but the ceiling had completely caved in, covering the building in debris. What was more, there appeared to be scorch marks on the floor and lower walls of the building.

Robin put his arm out, indicating that the others stop.

"Raven, can you clear some of this stuff away? I don't need to tell you to be careful."

"Give me a second."

Eyes and hands flashing black, Raven began to levitate several large chunks of rubble, and placed them carefully outside the building. The process was slow, and after a while more than one pair of hands was itching with impatience, but slowly several crates were revealed, as well as a plethora of smashed machinery. And in the corner, a large desk, on which sat a computer, with the kind of keyboard designed with the hard of sight in mind, with extra large buttons.

Robin nodded in satisfaction, and called the police.

--

Beast Boy woke to the sound of running water. He sat up, and yawned heavily, and glanced around.

"Jinx?"

"Bath!" was the reply, shouted from behind a door he hadn't noticed in the gloom of last night.

On that note, he opened the curtains, and was by now only mildly surprised to find that it was still pitch black outside. In fact, the only difference from last night was the fact that all the lamps in the room had been lit.

"Hmm." He thought out loud. "Do you think that means I've slept through a whole day, and it's night again? Probably not- that would be too easy." And who lit the lamps?

"Jinx?"

"_Bath!_"

"Sorry, sorry." He sighed, and went to the wardrobe, on the off chance that there would be a shirt that fit him there. The wardrobe was a heavy looking oak thing, with an ornate key in the lock. He turned this, and tried to open it. Unfortunately, it turned out that he had just locked it. Grumbling to himself, he turned the key back and opened the lock.

After a moment of consternation (he had never seen that much pink in any one place outside of Starfire's room) he picked out the most masculine looking item he could- it was both white and devoid of frills, and it was a suit shirt, which he did up up to the top two buttons. The only downside was that it was only marginally thicker than a cobweb. But at least he felt a little less exposed.

After a few minutes, Jinx left the bathroom, towelling off her hair.

"Ugh. I hate getting back into dirty clothes."

Beast Boy moved to go into the bathroom, but Jinx stopped him.

"Hold up."

"Okay. What's up?"

"I think I've figured out what's going on here."

Heavy green eyebrows raised. "Oh? Good, 'cause I have _no _clue."

Jinx smirked. "I noticed. Anyway," she paused dramatically "I think this is all out of our heads."

Beast Boy relaxed. "Oh, is _that_ it? I was afraid we'd been sent into the future or into space, or something inconvenient like that."

Jinx looked confused. "Okay, were you being serious just then? Because I honestly cannot tell."

Beast Boy shook his head. "No, it's cool, I've had something like this happen to me before. Well, the same _concept_, anyway. So you think this is all a hallucination or something?"

Jinx shook her head. "No, it's too... realistic."

Beast Boy gave her an odd look. "Okay, either you're setting up a really cheap gag there, or you know something I don't."

"No, I mean, we need to sleep, we need to eat, we bleed. It's all... real. It's like this is another dimension, or something like that. And I'm pretty sure we're in my head right now."

"What makes you say that?"

Jinx looked evasive. "...Just a feeling."

"Yeah. I don't buy that. Come on, you can tell me."

"Ugh, I'm not going to get you to drop this, am I?"

He grinned. "Nope."

"Fine. You know all those creatures in the bar? Well, they're all sketches I drew." She rushed the rest of her explanation, embarrassed. "Look, I was bored, and I like drawing, okay? There's nothing wrong with it!"

"I didn't say there was. Although, now you mention it, your mind seems a pretty screwed up place."

"Says the guy with monsters and zombies in his head." She didn't mean to say that. It was a reflex born of years of banter with her H.I.V.E. colleagues. But she'd never had the same kind of personal information she had on Beast Boy.

He just grinned, and shook his head. "I guess you've got a point there."

Jinx abruptly grabbed him by the shoulder. He looked at her, confused. She appeared to be steeling herself for something.

"Beast Boy, I'm... sorry. That was a low blow."

He made to shake her off. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"No, it's not fine. Beast Boy, you need help. I'm serious. Beast Boy, look at me."

He stared at her, green eyes no longer entirely friendly. "What?"

"Beast Boy, you need help. You should really get some therapy."

He shook his head. "I'm fine."

"Oh really? Then talk to me about it. Tell me what _actually_ happened back in that castle."

His silence was all the response she needed.

"You see? You really need to sort these issues out."

"Why should _you_ care?" he snapped, suddenly angry.

"I don't know," Jinx said, determined to keep her temper. "But there it is."

He looked at the ground, and rested his hand on her forearm, her hand being still at his shoulder.

"Okay."

"Promise me," she insisted.

He sighed, but grinned a little. "I promise that if we get out of this alive-"

"_When _we get out. No quitter talk."

His grin widened. "Fine, _when _we get out, I'll go see a therapist."

Jinx nodded, oddly satisfied. "Good." After a moment, she realised she was still touching his shoulder, and removed her hand. "Now go bathe. You reek."

He nodded, and headed for the bathroom. As we was about to enter, he turned back.

"Oh, Jinx? Thanks."

With that he closed the door and began to run the water, leaving Jinx to wonder what exactly had gotten into her lately.


	19. Break Fast

**Chapter Nineteen: Break Fast.**

When Jinx and Beast Boy left their room, they headed for the bar, where they were met by the innkeeper, who ushered them to a seat before bustling off in a great hurried cloud of enthusiasm. Before either of them were settled enough to be unsure what to do with themselves, he had returned, bearing plates, the contents of which they turned their attention to quickly.

"Weird," declared Beast Boy, holding up a vegetable (possibly) of some description between thumb of forefinger. "It _looks_ like a star fruit, but it tastes" here he nibbled a corner, with an air of stoicism that could only be described as Socratic "more like a cucumber. What does that make it, a starcumber?"

Jinx frowned. Now that Beast Boy was starting to regain his equilibrium, he was beginning to lose focus. "That's not the issue."

"You're right. The _real _question is, since this is all from your brain, does this count as cannibalism? 'Cause that's not cool, you know. I mean not cool from a _genetic _ point of view. That's how Mad Cow Disease got started, you know. They fed cows stuff that was mixed with _bits of pulped other cows_." This last statement was delivered with an air of pure horror.

Jinx made a face. "Okay, number one, stop babbling. Number two, never bring up something like that while I'm trying to eat _ever again_, okay? And number three, that's _still _not the issue. We've got to figure out what we've got to do next."

"I think it's pretty obvious. We've got to go back to that castle, haven't we?"

Jinx nodded. "That seems like the place."

Beast Boy nodded. "Based on the fact that it's where we got attacked a lot, it does look like the best place to go looking."

Jinx raised an eyebrow. "That standard procedure for super-investigations?"

Beast Boy grinned. "If people want you away from somewhere so bad that they'll try to kill you to keep you out, you _know_ it's something cool. Or illegal."

Jinx rolled her eyes, but couldn't stop a smile. Beast Boy noticed, and his grin grew in response.

Suddenly, there was a heavy thump on the door, and everything froze.

"... you... wanna get that?" Beast Boy asked at large.

Tentatively, the innkeeper hopped from his stool, and waddled nervously over to the door. Instead of opening it, he peered through the curtain of the window next to it.

What the innkeeper saw was clearly a source of great distress, as he emitted a startled "Bwak!" and back-pedalled wildly, arms and tail flailing.

Beast Boy instantly slithered across the floor and up to the windowsill, where reptilian eyes gave way to those of a mouse. After a few seconds, he dropped to the floor, where he returned to his human form.

"What is it?" Jinx asked, grimly sure that it would be some eldritch horror or other.

"...A bunch of dudes in blue cloaks." Beast Boy replied, confused. "And I'm pretty sure I've seen them before somewhere."

Jinx's chair scraped across the floor as she stood and strode across the bar. A glance out the window was enough to answer her question.

"Oh. _Those _guys."

She glanced around the bar before looking out of the window again.

"...Sure are a lot of them, aren't there?"

--

Cyborg opened the door, and negotiated his enormous shoulders through the frame. Once back inside the small room the Titans had colonised, he stepped towards the table, his expression blank. With an air of great concentration, he placed a brown envelope folder on the table. When it became apparent that he didn't intend to continue, Robin nudged the folder open. There was one piece of paper inside.

"It's a transcript of the last e-mail the computer sent. Seems that was set up remotely too, since the sending time was about thirty seconds before the building came down."

Robin picked up the message, which was in English, cleared his throat, and as Raven stood from her meditative position, and Starfire looked up from the other side of the table, he began to read.

"To: Guessinggame(exclamation mark)(exclamation mark)(exclamation mark)213(at)Hotmail(dot)com"

Robin paused momentarily to wonder at the fact that the Quiz apparently used Hotmail.

"Re: To End All Wars.

"If you receive this, then know that I have failed, and am now dead. Do not mourn for me, even if you would be so inclined, as I am now finally home. However, before I can rest, I have a request for you. I once called you 'comrade', and I can only hope you will honour this.

"Garfield Logan, alias 'Beast Boy', must die. We are the last of the Brotherhood and the Doom Patrol, and it is only fitting we leave the world together. I would kill him myself, but, obviously, events have prevented that.

"You are the only one of us left who can do this. Number None vanished long ago, and The Toy is far from equal to the task. All the rest are dead. You alone can end our war.

"Do this, kill that murderer, and you may take whatever you wish from our home base. The pass code to the vaults is "Dada". I give you this as a sign of trust, and I am certain that you will not let me down.

"Wishing you the best of fortune,

"Monsieur Mallah."

Robin paused for a moment to absorb the information, then ran his eyes over the text again.

"Was this it?"

Cyborg nodded, tonelessly. "Pretty much. There were a few other e-mails, only of interest to the police, and a few partially damaged files, mostly blueprints, but this is all we might have a use for, and we're lucky to even have that. The computer is pretty trashed."

Robin's teeth ground in frustration. "Then we're back to square one. All this tells us is that at some point before or after she came to Jump City, the Quiz may or may not have gone to a secret base that none of us know about, in a location none of us know, and may or may not have opened the vault there." A green-gloved fist slammed onto the table in frustration.

"Oh, I don't think that's all that this tells us." Cyborg's voice was as blank as it had been since he came in, and that worried Robin. "For example, _I_ didn't know that Beast Boy was a member of a group called the Doom Patrol. _I_ didn't know that this monkey considered him a murderer, and _I_ didn't know that the monkey cared enough to ensure that his revenge would outlive him." He turned his head, his voice still perfectly controlled. "Starfire, did _you_ know all of this?"

Starfire shook her head, reluctantly. She could see what Cyborg was doing, and didn't like being forced onto a side. However, she _was_ wondering about all that had just been revealed to her, and this did look like a way to get answers.

"Raven, did _you_ know about this?"

Raven met Cyborg's gaze, but said nothing. After a moment, she looked away.

"Hmm. And Robin, I don't suppose _you_ know anything about this, do you?"

Robin fought the urge to loosen his collar. _This_... was going to be awkward.

--

"What are they? In the real world, I mean."

Jinx waved her arms. "They were like... enforcers at the H.I.V.E. Academy. They basically made sure you followed the rules, and if you didn't, they came and took you away for a while."

He barely dared to ask. "And... what happened there?"

"No one would say." And that made everything worse. "Apparently _I_ was escorted off by them more than a few times, according to Gizmo and Mammoth, but I don't remember it ever happening to me."

Beast Boy shuddered dramatically.

"Of course, I figured out later, after the H.I.V.E. went under, that what probably happened was that Blood gave you a 'refresher'." Jinx's voice was laced with bitterness.

While this exchange was taking place, the innkeeper was ferrying patrons as quietly as he could out the back door. He took note of Jinx, and grabbed her by the wrist and began to

drag her away.

"Oh no you don't" she snapped, yanking her hand out of his grip. "I am _through_ running. I am rested, I am refreshed, and I am ready to _kick some ass_."

Cowed by this, the innkeeper retreated, but only to behind his bar, where he cowered, his tail barely reaching the top of the counter.

"Nice speech," Beast Boy said, slightly nervously. "Tell me, what could these guys actually _do_?"

Jinx paused. "You know... I don't know."

"Uh huh," Beast Boy went on, seemingly more nervous than before. "And what did they actually _look _like?"

"Dark blue robes, and they all had the same face, a dark-skinned woman. It was actually creepy as hell, but we got used to it. Never heard them talk, never saw them in anything other than their robes either."

"Uh huh, right, right," Beast Boy carried on, now almost manic. "But tell me, what did you _imagine _that they were like?"

Jinx's jaw waggled impotently as she tried to come up with a response as Beast Boy's question derailed her entire train of thought.

"We're screwed, huh?" he asked, glibly.

Jinx gave a small nod. "Very."

The door exploded, shards of charred wood flying inwards, and a blue tide descended on the bar.

**--**

**Note: If a non-colour blind person has seen the episode "Deception" recently, or can look up the screencaps, please tell me if the robed figures in the H.I.V.E. are actually wearing blue or not. I like to be accurate about these things. Also, for those lovers of insanity, look up "Brotherhood of Dada" on Wikipedia. Look it up, and gaze upon what this story could have been, had I stumbled upon it earlier. Unfortunately for you, I only looked up "Brotherhood of Evil." Alas.  
**


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